GERMAN IMPERIALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE:

A COMPARATIVE STUDY


A Dissertation
by
NILES STEFAN ILLICH



Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of
Texas A&M University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY






December 2007




Major Subject: History















GERMAN IMPERIALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY


A Dissertation
by
NILES STEFAN ILLICH



Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of
Texas A&M University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY


Approved by:

Chair of Committee, Arnold Krammer
Committee Members, Chester Dunning
Henry Schmidt
Robert Shandley
Head of Department, Walter Buenger


December 2007

Major Subject: History






iii

ABSTRACT

German Imperialism in the Ottoman Empire:
A Comparative Study. (December 2007)
Niles Stefan Illich, B.A., Texas A&M University;
M.A., Clemson University
Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Arnold Krammer


The conventional understanding of German expansion abroad, between
unification (1871) and the First World War (1914), is that Germany established colonies
in Africa, the Pacific Islands, and to a lesser degree in China. This colonialism began in
1884 with the recognition of German Southwest Africa. This dissertation challenges
these conventionally accepted notions about German expansion abroad. The challenge
presented by this dissertation is a claim that German expansionism included imperial
activity in the Ottoman Empire. Although the Germans did not develop colonies in the
Ottoman Empire, German activity in the Middle East conformed closely to the
established model for imperialism in the Ottoman Empire; the British established this
model in the 1840s. By considering the economic, political, military, educational, and
cultural activities of the Germans in the Ottoman Empire it is evident that the Ottoman
Empire must be considered in the historiography of German expansionism.
When expanding into the Ottoman Empire the Germans followed the model
established by the British. Although deeply involved in the Ottoman Empire, German
activity was not militaristic or even aggressive. Indeed, the Germans asserted themselves
iv
less successfully than the British or the French. Thus, this German expansion into the
Ottoman Empire simultaneously addresses the question of German exceptionalism.









































v

DEDICATION







To my brothera finer friend I will never have.




































vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All of my scholarly interests and accomplishments have the same origina paper
I wrote in 1995 on the Nazi Party in Mexico. Professor Arnold Krammer accepted me as
a project and permitted me to do as much research as I could; before this project I had
never heard of the National Archives. My friendship and relationship with Professor
Krammer has prospered since that original project, and I am saddened that the conclusion
of this dissertation will mean that I am no longer one of his students. In addition to a
wonderful relationship with Dr. Krammer I have also benefited from the friendship,
guidance, and demanding requirements of my other committee members. Among those, I
owe a particular debt to Professor Bob Shandley who discussed dissertation topics with
me for almost a full year and did far more than I could have expected from a committee
member from an outside field. Professor Shandley was always willing to lunch, whether
we were in Germany or College Station, and discuss the dissertation. I am also indebted
to Professor Chester Dunning who permitted me to work closely with him on Early
Modern Europe, and who constantly provided me with intellectual and academic
challenges. Further, Professor Dunning trusted me enough to tell me about the other
side of academics. We discussed topics ranging from personality conflicts to the always
difficult academic job market. The purpose of these discussions was sometimes to help
me avoid problems, but more frequently to help me understand what I was getting myself
into as I prepared for an academic career. Lastly, I want to thank my friend Professor
Hank Schmidt. Not only have I taken numerous classes from him, but I always enjoyed
talking with him about fly-fishing and the Southwest.
vii
In addition to a tremendous committee, I have also been fortunate to work for
professors who took a real interest in my academic and intellectual development.
Professors Canup, Anderson, Stranges, Adams, and Dunlap provided me with excellent
opportunities to lecture and teach. I am particularly thankful to Professor Gerald Betty,
who contributed significantly to this dissertation, to my academic career, and to my
general disposition. Lastly, I am especially grateful to Professor Jim Rosenheim who, as
the Director of the Melbern G. Glasscock Center, I came to know quite well. The year I
spent as a Glasscock Graduate Scholar was the most important intellectual experience of
my life; during that year I wrote this entire dissertation with the exception of chapter I
and the conclusion. I would not have made such progress without the resources provided
by the Glasscock Center. I am also grateful to the many friends I developed in graduate
school, some of whom were my students and others were my colleagues. However,
without Inna Rodchenko, Sudina Paungpetch, Andy Clink, Thomas Nester, Derrick
Mallet, Chris Mortenson, Troy Blanton, and Kevin Motl I would not look back on
graduate school as fondly as I do. I apologize to those whom I hurt when I put school in
front of themit turns out I was wrong. Lastly, I was also fortunate to have a wonderful
staff to assist me. However, nearly all of these people became my friends, and I count
them among my favorite people in the department. Among the most important are Kelly
Cook, Barbara Dawson, and Judy Mattson. However, a special place will always exist
for Jude Swank and Annette Turner.
A graduate education is a luxury, and I would not have been able to enjoy this
luxury without the support of my family. My parents made a financial and emotional
investment in my academic career, and I could not have accomplished it without them.
viii
My sister did a better job pretending to be interested in my research than anyone else, and
I am enjoying her real interest in my legal career. I lived with my brother for almost my
entire doctoral program, and there is no one with whom I would rather be than him.
Thanks for everything brother.






































ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS


Page

ABSTRACT................................................................................................................... iii

DEDICATION................................................................................................................ v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.............................................................................................. vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................................ ix

CHAPTER

I INTRODUCTION................................................................................... 1

II THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF GERMAN COLONIALISM:
PROBLEMS AND POTENTIAL.......................................................... 12

III THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE GREAT POWERS:
IMPERIALISM AND EUROPEAN EXPANSION, 1850-1914.......... 34

IV THE BRITISH MODEL OF IMPERIALISM IN THE OTTOMAN
EMPIRE, 1838-1880.............................................................................. 65

British Economic and Commercial Influence in the Ottoman
Empire up to 1878............................................................................ 70
British Involvement in Ottoman Construction, Military, and
Governmental Affairs...................................................................... 89
British Cultural Imperialism............................................................ 111
Conclusion... 121

V THE RISE OF GERMANY AND GERMAN ECONOMIC
IMPERIALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.................................. 125

German Commercial Imperialism in the Ottoman Empire............ 143

VI GERMAN POLITICAL IMPERIALISM IN THE OTTOMAN
EMPIRE, 1877-1908............................................................................ 169

German Military Relations with the Ottoman Empire.................... 197

VII GERMAN CULTURAL IMPERIALISM AND THE CULTURE OF
IMPERIALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE................................. 204
x

CHAPTER Page

VIII CONCLUSION.................................................................................... 234

REFERENCES............................................................................................................ 246

VITA............................................................................................................................ 265





































1


CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Article one hundred-fifty five of the Treaty of Versailles, which is located in a
section of the treaty devoted to German interests in China (articles 128-134), Egypt
(articles 148-154) and other such territories, reads as follows:
Germany undertakes to recognize and accept all arrangements which
the Allied and Associated Powers may make with Turkey and Bulgaria
with reference to any rights, interests and privileges whatever which
might be claimed by Germany or her nationals in Turkey and Bulgaria
and which are not dealt with in the provisions of the present Treaty.

The reference to any rights, interests and privileges whatever might be claimed by
Germany attests to the unusual imperial relationship that existed between Germany and
the Ottoman Empire. In spite of this obvious historical reference to the German
relationship with the Ottoman Empire, historians have largely ignored German activity in
the Ottoman territories. Thus, this dissertation is a polemic against the conventional
historiographic understanding of German imperialism.
Traditionally, historians of German colonialism (there are very few historians
who consider themselves to be historians of German imperialism, almost all such
historians use the term colonialism) see the latter as a process begun with Bismarcks
recognition of German claims in what became German Southwest Africa (1884).
Moreover, these historians see German colonialism principally in Africa, but also in
China, and the islands of the Pacific (but generally nowhere else). This dissertation
______________________
This dissertation follows the style of Diplomatic History.
2
argues that such an understanding of German colonialism is unnecessarily narrow and
even a distortion. As an example of this expanded notion of imperialism, this dissertation
uses the Ottoman Empire, and, specifically, a comparative study of British and German
activities there.
The notion that colonies are necessary for colonialism/imperialism to exist is a
relic of the eighteenth-century and, in the nineteenth-century, a poor test of imperial
activity. Instead, by the nineteenth-century, many of the European powers (and
increasingly the United States) extended themselves into foreign territories and countries
without the ambition to settle them or to establish colonies. Rather, in many such
circumstances (of which the Ottoman Empire is certainly one), the Powers preferred not
to formally colonize the territory, but instead to control it only to the point necessary to
achieve specific goals. Indeed, in the Ottoman Empire, the cumulative consequence of a
system of treaties reached between 1774 and 1856 prohibited any of the Powers from
establishing colonies in the principal territories of the Ottoman Empire (peripheral
territories, such as the European territories of the Ottoman Empire and parts of North
Africa, were viewed differently). In the case of the Ottoman Empire this interest in
control began with the British, who sought to secure the overland route between the
Mediterranean and the Red Sea, as the most important route for communications between
London and India. The British formally established themselves in Gibraltar (1830) and in
Aden (at the mouth of the Red Sea) (1839), securing two of the three possible choke
points between London and India, before they established themselves in the Ottoman
Empire. In establishing this overland route, the British created a model of imperialism
3
that all of the Great Powers, including Germany, used to extend imperialism (and in some
cases colonialism) into the Ottoman Empire.
As this dissertation considers German imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, it does
so by first considering the international conditions that required the British to overcome
their reticence to establish themselves as an imperial power in the Ottoman Empire.
After explaining the international conditions that compelled the British to overcome their
hesitancy to extend into the Ottoman Empire and the system of treaties that prohibited the
formation of formal colonies, the dissertation then considers the specific model of
imperialism that the British developed for the Ottoman Empire. This model is important
to the history of modern
1
imperialism in the Ottoman Empire because it became the
accepted method for imposing imperial desires on the Ottoman territories without
upsetting the European balance of power. This British imperial model did not initially
include formal colonies (in the principal areas of the Ottoman Empire, obviously it did
include colonies in peripheral Ottoman territories, such as Aden), as the British did not
make Egypt a protectorate until 1914, but instead dominated the Ottoman government
(Sublime Porte) without formally imposing a system of colonialism on it. However, the
British, like the rest of the Great Powers, had positioned themselves for the fall of the
Ottoman Empire, and, when it fell, the Great Powers (who were already established
there) became colonial powers (except for the obvious examples of Germany, which lost
all of its colonial and imperial territory, including the territory in the Ottoman Empire,
after the First World War, and Russia whose Revolution prohibited imperial expansion).

1
The historiographic question of when modernity arrived in the Middle East is interesting
and considered in the footnotes of Chapter II, however it is sufficient here to note that
historians of the Middle East conventionally (but not universally) agree that the modern
era begins in 1800.
4
Understanding this model is important for two additional reasons: first, the British model
provided the Germans with an established and accepted method to impose themselves on
the Ottoman Empire; second, British Imperial historiography recognizes this activity in
the Ottoman Empire as imperial (whereas historians of German colonialism do not, in
spite of the strong parallels between the activities of the two).
Some historians have considered this imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, and
other places, as informal imperialism. This term is intentionally rejected in this
dissertation, because, it is the contention of this dissertation that the imperialism that
developed in the Ottoman Empire, by both the British and Germans, was both quite
formal and intentional. However, this imperialism did differ from that of earlier periods.
What has confused historians and other scholars is the lack of colonies in the principal
areas of the Ottoman Empire. Somehow, without the immediate establishment of colonies
the imperialism in these areas becomes informal, and thus less than the imperialism or
colonialism of earlier periods (and in German history such areas are completely absent
from the historiography leading to the general conclusion that all German imperial
activity was colonial; such a position has distorted some of the arguments about the
nature of German colonialism). What scholars often fail to consider is the long imperial
incubation that occurred in the Ottoman Empire. While the Great Powers did not
establish colonies immediately, by the early 1920s, the victorious powers had formal
colonies in the Ottoman Empire.
Instead of using a diluted definition of imperialism (such as informal
imperialism), I contend that the international conditions had changed by the time the
Germans and the British sought to establish themselves in the Ottoman Empire. These
5
new international conditions made the actual development of colonies undesirable, and,
instead, emphasized the extension of influence (even dominance) without colonies
(which were seen as a burden, both financial and logistic). These international conditions
changed again after the First World War (because of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and
the new importance of petroleum, which had been discovered in Ottoman territories in
the earliest years of the twentieth-century).
The British model for imperialism in the Ottoman Empire (which the Germans
appropriated almost without change, albeit less successfully) extended British control
over three principal areas of the Ottoman Empire: first, financial (involving loans to the
Ottoman government, railway construction, port construction, and trade); second
governmental (instituting changes to the Ottoman governmental system to facilitate the
ability of the Sultan to control his empire and for the Europeans to oversee his activities);
and, third, cultural (the British model brought Ottoman treasure back to the mother
country to teach imperialism to the citizens). The Germans adopted the British model
of imperialism for the Ottoman Empire in the 1870s, but never advanced it as far as the
British did (with the possible exception of the appropriation of artifacts, the Pergamon
Altar in Berlin is one of the greatest treasures taken from the Ottoman Empire).
Although this dissertation considers both German and British imperial activity in
the Ottoman Empire, it is not a history of either. Rather, this dissertation is a polemic
which contends that the Germans established a formal imperial presence in the Ottoman
Empire. The principal goal of this dissertation is to convince the reader that it is worth
considering whether Germany had an imperial presence in the Ottoman Empire and how
this imperial activity might be accommodated within the historiography of German
6
colonialism. This dissertation shows the German imperial presence in the Ottoman
Empire comparatively, by first establishing the British model of imperialism and
illustrating that this British activity is included in the historiography of British
imperialism. Once British imperialism in the Ottoman Empire has been established, the
dissertation contends that the Germans developed an imperial system that paralleled
(intentionally) almost every aspect of British imperialism in the Ottoman Empire (even if
the Germans were less successful). The dissertation then asks, if the activities of these
two powers were almost identical (although differing in intensity and success) and one
(the British) is recognized as imperial, then why is the second example (German) not
understood as the same?
2
Further, the dissertation questions the position of colonies in
the Ottoman Empire, had the Germans won the First World War, it is entirely reasonable
to expect them to have established colonies in the Ottoman Empire.
Consequently, this dissertation challenges the conventional understanding of
German imperialism in two important ways. First, the dissertation confronts the
conventional view that the German empire began in 1884; and, second that the German
Empire existed only in Africa, China, and the Pacific Islands. This dissertation will show
that German imperialism began significantly earlier than 1884, at least the 1870s, and
that German imperialism existed beyond this narrow list of German colonial territories.
Moreover, the dissertation concludes by considering the implications of including the
Ottoman Empire in the historiographic arguments concerning German imperialism. It is
expected that the inclusion of the Ottoman Empire will help normalize the German
imperial experience.

2
No effort is made to deal with the logical question, was British activity in the Ottoman
Empire imperial. That has been addressed in the historiography of British imperialism.
7
There is no archive that produced a cache of documents that prompted this
reconsideration of German imperialism; rather, this dissertation relies on generally well-
known documents and archival sources that are quite familiar to scholars. Indeed, much
of the material included in this dissertation is intentionally secondary. The reason for this
is to illustrate that the argument presented here is not radical, because the materials
considered here are conventional and well accepted by the community of German
colonial historians. The primary archival material for this dissertation has been taken
from the records of the British Foreign Office and the German Foreign Office; these are
supplemented by contemporary publications addressing British and German imperialism.
Although scholars are well acquainted with the records reviewed for this dissertation, this
dissertation differs from earlier studies because of its comparative context, and the
attempt to understand imperialism based on nineteenth-century terms rather than
contemporary ones (as well as the obvious inclusion of the Ottoman Empire).
The second chapter of the dissertation discusses the historiography of German
colonialism and the reasons why scholars have focused on colonies as the important test
of German colonialism. This chapter attempts to provide some meaning to the difficult
words colonialism and imperialism. Ultimately, the chapter concludes that the use of
these terms must be considered relative to the historical period that the words are being
used to describe. Consequently, there can be no useful universal definition of
colonialism or imperialism; instead, scholars can only define these terms by qualifying
them, such as nineteenth-century imperialism or seventeenth-century colonialism,
which were quite different. Moreover, notions of imperialism are based (frequently) on
the European imperial experience; however, imperialism occurred within the Ottoman
8
Empire without European participation, such imperialism differed importantly from
European imperial activity. Further complicating an understanding of these terms is the
problem that they differed, not only based on the people imposing the imperial system,
but also because of the geographic location where this imperialism was being imposed.
Imperialism in the Ottoman Empire differed significantly from imperialism in Africa or
the Arctic (which occurred concurrently with the extension of imperialism into the
Ottoman Empire). Thus, this dissertation contends that scholars must be even more
specific, using increasingly detailed qualifiers like nineteenth-century European
imperialism in the Ottoman Empire if they seek a meaningful definition of the term.
Using the definitions from the second chapter concerning the meaning of
imperialism and colonialism, Chapter III treats the general conditions of the eighteenth-
and nineteenth-centuries that led the European powers, and specifically Britain, to impose
this specialized form of imperialism on the Ottoman Empire. The chapter contends that
the parallel rise in the importance of the overland route between London and India and
the possibility of the Russians moving into Constantinople compelled the British to exert
themselves as an imperial power in the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, the chapter
emphasizes the threat that the Egyptian ruler (although technically Egypt remained part
of the Ottoman Empire) Mehemet Ali and the French expansion in North Africa posed to
the continued existence of the Ottoman Empire. These threats required the British to
establish themselves in the Ottoman Empire and to impose their reluctant imperialism.
However, the chapter also explains why the international conditions of the period
prohibited the British from establishing a traditional or formal imperial system (a series
of treaties signed between 1774 and 1856 aimed at maintaining the European balance of
9
power). The chapter concludes in 1838 with the British ascension to the position of the
strongest European power in the Ottoman Empire, but does not describe the specifics of
the British model of imperialism that the Germans appropriated thirty-five years later.
The importance of understanding the specific reasons for the establishment of the British
imperialism on the Ottoman Empire is that these conditions defined the manner in which
the British could impose themselves on the Empire. Because the Germans copied the
British model so closely, such an understanding concurrently explains German
imperialism in the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, the same factors that limited the British
remained in place when the Germans began imposing themselves on the Ottoman
Empire.
The fourth chapter explains the elements of the British model of imperialism. The
model of British imperial influence in the Ottoman Empire has been divided into three
components, each concentrating on a specific imperial goal. The three divisions of the
British model for Ottoman imperialism are: commercial relations, British influence in the
government of the Ottoman Empire (including British military influence), and the
teaching of imperialism to the people of Britain. Each of these sub-topics is addressed
in detail, and they are the basis for comparing British and German activity in the Empire.
In comparing the German and British imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, these will be
the specific topics considered.
Chapter V explains the rise of German financial influence in the Ottoman Empire,
and the concurrent decline of the British. As the first element in the British model, this
aspect of German and British imperialism has received significant attention from
scholars. Specifically, this chapter considers the use of loans and the construction of
10
large capital projects (such as the Anatolian and Baghdad Railway, ports, etc.) to increase
the Sultans ability to administer his own territories but also to assert European influence
in the Ottoman Empire. The principal actor in this imperialism was Deutsche Bank;
however, its directors were hesitant to invest heavily in the Ottoman Empire, only the
direct involvement of Kaiser Wilhelm II convinced them to extend the loans. Further, the
chapter describes the new governmental administrations that permitted the European
Powers (principally Germany, Britain, and France) to assert their influence in the Empire
and the conditions that caused the British to reduce their influence, thus permitting the
Germans an opportunity to become increasingly involved.
Chapter VI is a specific consideration of German involvement in the
governmental administration of the Ottoman Empire. While the previous chapter
addressed the involvement of the Germans in the financial aspects of the Ottoman
government, this chapter describes the German effort to bring the Ottoman military to the
standards of nineteenth-century European armies, both through training and through arms
sales. Because the Ottoman government did not separate military and civil duties,
influence in the military had immediate political consequences. Further, the chapter
considers the growth of German influence in the Ottoman Empire that developed from
Kaiser Wilhelms two visits to the Near East. As the first sitting monarch to visit
Constantinople, where he declared himself to be the protector of the worlds Muslims,
Wilhelms visit to the Ottoman Empire catalyzed the German position in the Ottoman
Empire.
The seventh chapter examines German cultural imperialism. Specifically, this
chapter considers the German appropriation and display of Ottoman artifacts, as well as
11
the growing interest in teaching Oriental languages and the influence of Oriental
architecture in nineteenth-century Germany. Moreover, the chapter also considers the
interest in archaeological discovery and the importance related to it (both in Germany and
internationally). The work of Heinrich Schliemann, as well as the discovery of the
Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gates, made Germany one of the premiere centers for the
study of Ottoman artifacts. Further, a discussion of the ability of the German public to
see these artifacts (in the context of the work of Glenn Penny and Suzanne Zantop) will
also be included.
Chapter VIII will conclude the dissertation and is specifically intended to
incorporate the Ottoman Empire into the historiography of German imperialism. Many
of the debates about German imperialism and German political affairs identify Germany
as an aberration; however, this dissertation contends that the Germans were well within
the recognized imperial activity of the period (and possibly even less aggressive than the
French or the British). Additionally, the historiography of German imperialism discusses
topics such as the motivation for the sudden rise in German colonial activity in 1884.
This dissertation contends that this rise was neither sudden nor in 1884. Thus, the
conclusion of this dissertation is devoted to reassessing the historiography of German
colonialism and questioning the established historigoraphic debates.









12

CHAPTER II
THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF GERMAN COLONIALISM:
PROBLEMS AND POTENTIAL
The British historian A.J.P. Taylor wrote a book entitled Germanys First Bid for
Colonies, 1884-1885.
3
Published in 1938, the historiographical parameters of German
colonialism had already been established, but the title of Taylors book provides a
succinct glimpse into the unreasonably rigid geographical and chronological boundaries
of German colonial historiography. These boundaries have artificially restricted the
discussion of German imperialism or colonialism
4
to the period between 1884 and 1918
and to Africa, the Pacific, and to a lesser degree China. While there is no doubt that these
territories developed into German colonies, it is important to consider that German
imperial ambitions and activities existed beyond the narrow geographical and
chronological boundaries that historians, such as Taylor, traditionally accept.
While it is overly simplistic to attribute this lack of a broader understanding of
German colonialism to the writings of one historian, the work of Mary Townsend (the
first historian to address German colonialism after 1918) provided a context that later
historians largely embraced, especially regarding the geographic and chronological
definitions of what constituted German colonialism. Her first book, The Origins of

3
A.J.P. Taylor, Germanys First Bid for Colonies, 1884-1885: A Move in Bismarcks
European Policy (London: MacMilliam and Co., 1938).

4
It is important to define these terms, but for introductory purposes their general meaning
is sufficient; and for this same purpose they will be used interchangeably. A latter
section of this chapter is dedicated to differentiating between these words and providing a
specific meaning for them. Nearly all historians who study German imperialism consider
themselves German colonial historians, and rarely use the term imperialism.
13
Modern German Colonialism, 1871-1885, concludes with a chapter entitled The
National Inauguration of Colonialism, where she contends that German colonial efforts
culminated in the transformative year of 1884-1885.
5

The conventional historiography of German colonialism does not include a debate
concerning the question of what constituted German colonial territory; instead, historians
have generally accepted the contention that Africa, the Pacific islands, and China
comprised the entirety of German imperial territory. This lack of debate means that
historians have focused on other components of the colonial historiography. Of the
various other topics that German colonial historians have considered, the most important
are the arguments that developed within the broader field of German history from the
works of Fritz Fischer and Hans-Ulrich Wehlerneither of whom considered
themselves, specifically, colonial historians. While these scholars generally did not
publish on German colonialism, the scope and intensity of the arguments they introduced
affected the writing of German colonial history, as it did nearly every other sub-genre of
nineteenth- and twentieth-century German history.
Publishing his most famous work in 1961, Griff nach der Weltmacht (Grab for
World Power, entitled somewhat blandly Germanys Aims in the First World War in its
English translation), Fritz Fischer incited what became known as the Fischer
Controversy. Influenced by the then obscure work of Eckart Kehr, Fischer jettisoned the
constraints of Rankean history and insisted on the consideration of economic and social

5
Mary Townsend, The Origins of Modern German Colonialism, 1871-1885 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1921). Authors writing in the years immediately following
the First World War wrote about German imperialism outside of this narrow
understanding of German imperialism. See for example: Edward Mead Earle, Turkey,
the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway: A Study in Imperialism (New York:
MacMillan Company, 1923).
14
explanations for historical events, most notably the origins of the First World War.
Fischer asserted, in his principal claim, that Germany intentionally precipitated the First
World War in order to assure itself of world power through an extended colonial
empire and the consolidation of the state at home. Although he did not specifically
intend to write a book on German colonial history, his topic necessitated a consideration
of the latter. Fischer did not overtly claim a broad imperial goal for Germany, beyond
what historians generally recognize (i.e. Africa, some Pacific Islands and China);
however, he emphasized the expansionist policy of the Imperial German government.
The importance he placed on expansionism included considerations of German efforts to
secure coaling stations in Yemen, German interests in expanding within Europe, German
expansionist policy towards the Ottoman Empire, and British concerns with German
expansion around India.
6
Consequently, while Fischer did not develop a broader context
in which German imperialism existed, he recognized the German expansionist goals
beyond the traditional German colonies and the significance that other European states
(especially Britain, Russia, and France) attributed to this. However, the most important
contribution of Fischers work, for German colonial historians, is the emancipation from
the limitations of Rankean history that traditionally bound German historiography. This
newly accepted freedom stimulated a generation of scholarship, which embraced social,
cultural, and other non-traditional historiographic approaches.
7


6
Bruce Waller, Hans-Ulrich Wehler on Imperial Germany, British Journal of
International Studies 1 (1975): 60-64.

7
Waller, 60-63.

15
Among the scholars emancipated from the Rankean limitations was Hans-Ulrich
Wehler, who published a series of books, most notably The German Empire, 1871-1918
and Bismarck und der Imperialismus (Bismarck and Imperialism), that further catalyzed
debate within the historiography of German colonialism. Instead of considering Wehlers
many books individually, it is prudent to summarize his contributions to German colonial
historiography. While Wehler is best known for his arguments in the historiographic
debate concerning the German Sonderweg, he made an important contribution to the
colonial historiography by acknowledging that Bismarck likely did not simply decide to
embrace colonialism in 1884 as many historians contend.
8
Instead, Wehler argues that
Bismarcks interest in colonialism developed earlier, from his experiences in the
Depression of 1873. Wehler further contends that Bismarck anticipated that colonies
would moderate swings in the German economy by providing a market for surplus goods,
a source of natural resources, etc.
9
Bismarcks efforts to secure stability for the newly
formed Reich also influenced large components of Wehlers most contentious arguments,
commonly referred to as social imperialism and negative integration.
10
For Wehler,
Germanys aggressive, expansionist, and imperialistic activities became Bismarcks tool
for re-directing pressures for further domestic political emancipation abroad (giving rise

8
Ibid., 61.

9
Ibid., 62-63.

10
Social Imperialism is essentially the idea that colonies could contribute or even
achieve German national unification (after political unification in 1871) by becoming a
distraction to the existing class conflicts in the newly established Germany. Negative
Integration referred to a similar idea, one in which the Germans problems would be
solved by identifying enemies of the state at home and rallying the rest of the country
against them (such as Catholics or Socialists).

16
to the idea of primat der Innenpolitik, or the primacy of domestic politics, which differed
dramatically from the foreign policy focus of the Rankean historians).
11

While Fischer and Wehler catalyzed a renaissance in German colonial
historiography, their work focused German colonial historians on specific questions, such
as the feasibility of social imperialism, in the case of Wehler, and the German intention
to go to war in 1914 and the significance of colonial possessions in that decision, in the
case of Fischer, instead of on the problem of the limited conception of German colonial
activity. However, the work of these historians re-energized the debate about nineteenth-
century German history and the German imperial system. Moreover, the renunciation of
the Rankean limitations permitted latter historians to consider a wider array of evidence
and topics.
The historiographic furor that Fischer and Wehler unleashed dominated nearly all
of German history in western Europe, the United States, and above all West Germany.
However, its influence in the East (especially East Germany) is not as evident. One
reason that the significance of Fischer and Wehler is less apparent in the colonial history
written in the DDR is that the historians of the DDR had devoted themselves to a study of
colonialism since the early 1950s, and, thus, their interest in nineteenth-century German
imperialism (and colonialism) predated Fischer. However, as previously stated, Western
historians did not commonly devote themselves to the study of German imperialism until

11
Waller, 65. Many historians have dedicated themselves to the question of the
dominance of Innenpolitik or Auenpolitik in German motivations for colonial or
imperial expansion. However, these historians have failed to consider that German
imperial expansion paralleled that of the British and the French quite strongly. The
German activities in the imperial realm were hardly aberrant, instead in many ways, as
will be shown, remained quite in line with the activities of other European powers.

17
after the publication of Fischers famous book in 1961. Unfortunately, the East German
combination of Marxist dogma and the contemporary political interest in depicting West
Germany as the successor to Nazism (which connected it directly to the Kaiserriech)
12

distracted historians from debating the broad parameters of German colonial history.
13

While the historians of East Germany dedicated themselves to the issues of German
colonialism, the ideological component of much of their work ultimately proved
unfounded. Consequently, these texts did not contribute to the historiography as fully as
they might have.
In spite of the innovations of Fischer and Wehler as well as the contributions by
East German historians, the historiography of German colonialism remains fettered by
the contention that German colonial activity existed exclusively in the period between
1884 and 1918 and in only in Africa, China, and the Pacific. Indeed, historians have
concluded that German activity in the Ottoman Empire, while impressive, specifically
failed to rise to the level necessary to constitute imperialism.
14
In spite of the real

12
Woodruff D. Smith, Colonialism and Colonial Empire, in Imperial Germany: A
Historiographical Companion, ed. Roger Chickering (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
1996), 429-431 (hereafter cited as Smith, Colonialism and Colonial Empire,).
Regrettably, historians are just beginning to consider the significance of the Fischer
Controversy in the DDR. See Matthew Stibbe, The Fischer Controversy over German
War Aims in the First World War and its Reception by East German Historians, 1961-
1989, Historical Journal 46 (2003): 649-668.

13
Smith Colonialism and Colonial Empire, 430.

14
Donald McKale, War by Revolution: Germany and Great Britain in the Middle East in
the Era of World War I (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1998); Gregor
Schllgen, Imperialismus und Gleichgewicht: Deutschland, England, und die
orientalische Frange, 1871-1914 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1984); Lora Wildenthal, German
Women for Empire, 1884-1945 (London: Duke University Press, 2001), 1-2; Smith,
Colonialism and Colonial Empire, 430, Smith includes the following list of colonial
territories: Africa, the Pacific, and Asia (i.e. China). A very recent dissertation laments
18
limitations on the understanding of what comprises German imperialism, there is an
evolving component of the historiography that has contributed to the expansion of the
understanding of what German colonialism and imperialism entailed. However, even
these scholars have failed to broaden the consideration of German imperial activity
adequately. The scholars who represent this group of historians include: Suzanne
Marchand, Susanne Zantop, Glenn Penny, Mary Louise Pratt, Nina Berman, Nancy
Mitchell, Woodruff Smith, and Mack Walker.
15

The most relevant historiographic argument to develop from the work of this
group of historians (relevant for this dissertation) addresses significance of the

the relatively little known aspects of the German engagement in the Near East prior to
World War I. See: S.M. Can Bilsel, Architecture in the Museum: Displacement,
Reconstruction, and Reproduction of the Monuments of Antiquity in Berlins Pergamon
Museum (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2003), 32. One recent history of the Baghdad
Railway described the German motivation for becoming involved in the Ottoman Empire
in the following way: Unlike their competitors [the British and the French], the Germans
working in Istanbul chose to interact with the Ottomans to help place the empire back on
its feet. Jonathan S. McMurray, Distant Ties: Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and the
Construction of the Baghdad Railway (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2001), 32. It is
true that the Germans sought the continued existence of the Ottoman Empire; however, as
will be shown, this was part of the established model for imperialism in the Ottoman
Empire. Because formal colonies could not be developed in the principal areas of the
Ottoman Empire, the European Powers asserted imperial influence within the existing
state. Once the Powers had an influential position in the Ottoman state they sought to
protect that position by sustaining the Ottoman state.

15
Scholars such as Penny, Zantop, and Pratt are principally concerned with reconsidering
the elements of colonialism (i.e. not just planting a flag, but also the display of colonial
artifacts). Other scholars, such as Smith, are more conventional historians of German
colonialism. This dissertation chiefly considers these separately, first by defining
colonialism and imperialism, and then by considering the culture of colonialism
(among other aspects of colonialism and imperialism). What distinguishes the historians
of the culture of colonialism (such as Zantop) is that they address German colonialism
and imperialism before 1884. The idea of representation receives the most attention in
this chapter because it is the only topic that has been addressed by several of these
historians.

19
representation
16
of the colonial (often centered on Latin America) in Germany. This
contribution is relevant to the argument presented here because, finding imperialism in
the Ottoman Empire requires considering unorthodox methods of imposing and teaching
imperialism. This group of authors contends that colonial and imperial ambitions and
activities can be discerned from the display of foreign objects in Germany. Suzanne
Zantop prompted this debate with her Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family and Nation
in Precolonial Germany, 1770-1870.
17
Zantops well-received work is part of a larger
field of social science research in which scholars consider the implications and
didacticism of the display of colonial artifacts around the world.
18
Zantop is hardly alone
in this field as other scholars within the fields of German history and cultural studies,
such as Nicholas Thomas,
19
have also devoted themselves to the study of this culture of
colonialism. These scholars emphasize the importance of moving away from defining
colonialism or imperialism exclusively as political or economic domination and instead
towards a more nuanced and less rigid understanding. Zantop uses this expanded
understanding of colonialism to consider the representation of Latin America in an

16
This notion of representation is quite broad, Zantop considers the representation of
literary works while Penny, and others place more emphasis on objects. The differences
in the objects necessitates somewhat different interpretations of them.

17
Suzanne Zantop, Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial
Germany, 1770-1870 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997).

18
John Noyes, Colonial Space: Spatiality in the Discourse of German South West Africa
1884-1915 (Philadelphia: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1992). Noyes addresses
similar material, by considering the relationship between literature and the colonization
of German Southwest Africa, there are however many other historians who have
addressed this topic.

19
Nicholas Thomas, Colonialisms Culture: Anthropology, Travel and Government
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 2.

20
impressively broad array of nineteenth-century German books, pamphlets, plays,
childrens literature, magazines, etc.
Using these literary sources, Zantop argues that Germany established a colonial
fantasy with Latin America. Zantop focuses her study on the colonial fantasy instead
of colonialism, because for most of the period that she studied, Germany (of course
Germany per se did not exist, but instead of considering the different German states she
uses Germany) did not have formal colonies in Latin America (importantly, her work is
concerned with formal colonialism, meaning actual colonies and she formally rejects the
use of imperialism, preferring to use colonialism almost exclusively).
20
According to
Zantop, the Germans established colonial fantasies because they did not participate
formally in the colonial partition of Latin America. Instead of establishing formal
colonies, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German scientists, authors, political
theorists, anthropologists, etc. all observed and then incorporated aspects of this Spanish
(and British) colonialism into the literature of their specific discipline. These authors
contributed to the colonial fantasy because they conventionally concentrated on the
negative aspects of Spanish or British colonialism and emphasized the ability of German
colonizers to have conducted this colonization less brutally, or in her words, to have been
superior colonizers.

20
Zantop, 9. She writes I prefer to use the terms colonialism and colonial
fantasies,Since I focus on fantasies, not actions, and since these fantasies are informed
predominantly by a settlement rather than an economic exploitation ideology, colonial
seems to be the more appropriate label. After this point, Zantop does not consider
imperialistic or economic manifestations of imperialism, although she does not appear to
doubt their existence either.

21
Zantop furthers her argument by introducing the powerful image of Alexander
von Humboldt. According to Zantop (in an argument also advocated by Mary Louise
Pratt
21
), Humboldts famous journey and writings made him a second Columbus,
discovering a new Latin America for the Germans. This new Latin America evolved
from Humboldts scientific and highly descriptive writings on the previously largely
unexplored interior of the continent. While the lack of colonies necessarily drove these
fantasies, examples of lost opportunities, such as Humboldt and the Fuggar and the
Welser merchant and banking families, also contributed to the development of these
fantasies. According to the colonial fantasy, these lost opportunities provided
evidence that the Germans would have been more benevolent colonizers. The
importance of these colonial fantasies (especially with individuals like Humboldt and
the Wesler and Fuggar families) is that the Germans developed a myth that they were
superior colonizers, which eventually led to a moral entitlement for actual German
colonization.
22
Ultimately, Zantop concludes that the representation of Latin America,
through the literature of colonial fantasies, propelled and even dominated the eventual
development of German colonies, even if these future colonies were not in Latin
America.
Glenn Penny contends that many scholars (including Zantop) who study the
representation of colonialism in nineteenth-century Germany oversimplify German
motivations. He acknowledges that these representations of the wider world (be it

21
Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York:
Routledge, 1992), 111-143.

22
Zantop, 202.

22
through literature, which Zantop studied, or through the artifacts that Penny considers) in
Germany had limited imperial appeal, but contends there is a richer context in which to
understand the foreign artifacts displayed in Germany.
23
The most important alternative
explanation for Penny is the international ethnographic movement that characterized the
middle and late nineteenth-century. According to Penny, viewing Latin American
artifacts in Germany as purely colonial would be inappropriate, because, according his
argument, they constituted a component of a broader effort by the Germans (as well as
the rest of Western Europe) to develop a comprehensive knowledge of the rest of the
world through museums dedicated to ethnology (Vlkerkunde). The creation of
ethnographic museums to display such objects did not advocate for colonialism because
artifacts in these museums came from literally all over the world, meaning that if they are
to be viewed as colonial, then this claim for colonialism is impossibly broad. Instead,
these objects fulfilled an intellectual and scientific purpose, and that this appropriation
and display of artifacts was an international phenomenon during the nineteenth-century.
Pennys convincing argument concerning the representation and display of
foreign objects requires qualification. The general subject of colonial exhibitions is well
developed in the broad historiography of colonialism; many historians who have written
on colonialism place tremendous importance on the display of colonial artifacts for both

23
H. Glenn Penny, Objects of Culture: Ethnology and Ethnographic Museums in
Imperial German, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 11-20.
Admittedly, Penny and Zantop address different colonial materials, Zantop considers
literature and Penny artifacts and contemporary cultural pieces. While their arguments
are not precisely the same because Zantop considers objects created in Germany, while
Penny considers objects created in potentially colonial territory they do intersect because
of their ultimate conclusions; Penny contends there was no colonial effort in Germany
before 1880 and Zantop considers the pre-colonial Germany essential to the
development of colonial Germany.

23
foreign and domestic audiences.
24
Consequently, while Pennys argument has validity
and the reality of the ethnographic museums was that they were places where many
scientific and other non-colonial activities occurred, it cannot be forgotten that the
objects displayed there (or at least some of them, especially those artifacts from the
Ottoman Empire) may have had an imperial function as well. Although some of these
objects may have been tools of scientific discovery, other objects displayed in
ethnographic museums could not escape an imperialistic context (especially those items
from the Ottoman Empire).
One of the problems with considering the work of scholars like Penny and Zantop
is the necessity of understanding the meaning of, and the relationship between, the terms
imperialism and colonialism. Many scholars inattentively use these terms
interchangeably; however, more precise writers distinguish between the two. The
malleability of these two words both in the context of the contemporary event and in the
scholarship of later historians is problematic; however, historians have established
conventional definitions.
25
These accepted understandings of colonialism and
imperialism (and especially the relationship between the two) contribute to an
appreciation of why the conception of German imperialism has often been so narrow.

24
James R. Ryan, Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British
Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Anne Maxwell, Colonial
Photography and Exhibitions: Representations of the Native and the Making of
European Identities (London: Leicester University Press, 1999). While Ryan and
Maxwell address somewhat different objects than Penny, they (Maxwell and Ryan) are
sufficiently similar to be considered in the same context as Penny. There are many other
books in this category, but Ryan and Maxwell are a sufficient representation.

25
Claiming that these definitions are conventional for the field is likely an overstatement.
It is clear that certain sub-fields of the discipline defer to this definition.

24
Conventionally, it is understood that colonialism means the acquisition of colonies and
that a colonial policy leads to imperialism, which is traditionally understood as initially a
protective policy for the colonies and then, in the nineteenth-century, an aggressive
economic policy.
26
In this generally accepted interpretation, colonialism must precede
imperialism; while historians do not often call this the British model, it is too heavily
dependent on the early imperial and colonial experiences of the British (and other early
colonizers). Indeed, in the nineteenth-century, the United States specifically claimed that
its model of imperialism was exceptional and different from Europes and more
morally acceptable.
27
Edward Said recently reversed this relationship contending that
imperialism, which he defines as the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a
dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory, leads to colonialism, which to
him means the implanting of settlements on distant territory. Further, Said claims that
while direct colonialism has largely ended [meaning in contemporary society];
imperialismlingers where it has always been, in a kind of general cultural sphere as
well as in specific political, ideological, economic, and social practices.
28

A further problem in establishing a definition for the words imperialism and
colonialism is that the meaning of these words changes depending on the geographic area
and the historical period that one considers. Even the relationship between these words
(i.e. which one comes first) is relative to the historical period and area being considered.

26
Zantop, 8-9. Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1993), xi-11 (hereafter cited as Said, Culture and Imperialism).

27
Maxwell, 6. Maxwell references Said for this, so it may also be useful to see: Said,
Culture and Imperialism, 350.

28
Said, Culture and Imperialism, 9.
25
Nineteenth-century imperialism in the Ottoman Empire provides several examples of this
problem. One such example was the creation of the greater Bulgaria, which the Treaty
of San Stefano (1878) accomplished following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878.
The Bulgaria created out of this treaty not only remained, formally, within the Ottoman
Empire, but it also had to submit its new king for the Sultans approval and had to pay an
annual tribute to the Ottoman government. However, contemporaries in London, Paris,
and Berlin viewed this (properly) as a major assertion of Russian imperial interests into
the Ottoman Empire. The contemporary reaction to this assertion of Russian imperial
interests was so great that the European Powers met at the Congress of Berlin (1878) with
the specific goal of reducing the Russian imperial influence in the Ottoman Empire
through the new Bulgaria. Thus, a context exists that permits the assertion of German
imperial interests in the Ottoman Empire (during the nineteenth-century) without the
establishment of colonies or for the imperial territory to be separated (formally) from the
Sultans Empire (Egypt and Tunis had similar imperial relationship). Consequently, the
selection of an appropriate definition for the words imperialism and colonialism
necessitates that the specific conditions of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire be
considered, as this imperialism clearly differed from Spanish imperial activity in Central
America in the eighteenth-century, or any other earlier (or even contemporary) imperial
activity.
Based on the understanding of imperialism and colonialism from the Ottoman
Empire, this dissertation will employ two methods to test for German colonialism or
imperialism in the Near East: first, Saids definition, in which imperialism precedes
colonialism and that, presumably, imperialism and formal colonies are separate (albeit
26
potentially related) concerns; second, a comparative method with the imperial activity of
the British, French, Russian, and other major powers. Specifically, after developing a
model of British imperialism for the Ottoman Empire, German activity relative to this
model will be gauged, and, thus, an assessment of German imperialism in the Ottoman
Empire can be made. It will be argued that in the case of the Ottoman Empire, German
activity paralleled Saids understanding of imperialism and colonialism but that
circumstances prevented the Germans from establishing formal colonies (the First World
War); however, the failure of colonialism to follow imperialism does not invalidate the
imperialism of the earlier period.
29

The use of a comparative model to test for the presence of German imperialism in
the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth-century is important because, by the eighteen-
fifties, the European Powers (with limited exceptions such as Africa) seized fewer formal
colonies and, thus, imperialism after eighteen-fifty differed from earlier nineteenth-
century imperialism. In spite of these differences, British imperial activity in the
Ottoman Empire has been generally recognized as such, even if the Crown failed to
establish formal colonies. The decision not to establish formal colonies is not unexpected
(by historians) as a growing British disinterest in additional colonies is illustrated by the
fact that not only did the British seize colonies more carefully and less frequently after
eighteen-fifty, but they also increasingly permitted their established colonies self-
government and even autonomy under the crown. Canada is an example of this

29
Bernard Porter, The Lions Share: A Short History of British Imperialism, 2
nd
ed. (New
York: Longman Press, 1977), 2-28.

27
increasing autonomy;
30
but, by the 1860s, nearly all of Australia governed itself, as did
New Zealand, and to a lesser degree the Cape Colony.
31
The reason the British were
willing to permit their colonies (except India) increasing autonomy was that many British
officials recognized that the benefits of direct colonial rule no longer justified the
expense.
32
However, in spite of both the increasing autonomy permitted for the
established colonies and the growing disinterest in establishing new colonies, the British
simultaneously continued to expand their global imperial presence. The parallels
between the extension of German and British imperial influence in places like the
Ottoman Empire (without colonies) makes a comparative study of this phenomena
particularly viable. Consequently, by comparing British and German imperial
experiences, through a definition of imperialism that accounts for the historical context of
events in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, scholars will not only expand the
understanding of German imperialism, but they may also recognize that German imperial
ambition and activity remained solidly within the practices of other European states (i.e.
by extending influence without establishing large colonies).
One of the most effective tools for a comparison of British and German imperial
activity in the Ottoman Empire is the idea of the imperialism of free trade, which has

30
D. George Boyce, Decolonization and the British Empire, 1775-1997 (New York: St.
Martins Press, 1999), 28-39. This is an oversimplification, there were many problems in
Canada, not the least of which was the conflict between the descendants of the English
and the French, and many solutions were considered, of which increased autonomy and
self-government was one (and ultimately, the one that persevered).

31
Porter, 16.

32
Boyce, 43-46. The British recognition of the expense of maintaining colonies was so
well recognized that there was a minor movement for the British to abandon most of their
colonial possessions.

28
dominated British imperial historiography with its contention that the British were
reluctant colonizers. The scholars most associated with the idea of the imperialism of
free trade are Ronald Robinson and Jack Gallagher,
33
whose so-called Gallagher and
Robinson Controversy dominated the historiography of British colonialism from the
1950s until the 1980s. Gallagher and Robinson contend that the conventional
understanding of nineteenth-century British imperialism (i.e. the pre-1953
historiography) minimized the continuity of British imperial activity by claiming that in
the latter nineteenth-century British imperial ambitions flagged because (in the latter
nineteenth-century) the British seized fewer colonies and did so with apparently greater
caution. Gallagher and Robinson reject this claim (that a decrease in the establishment of
colonies equated to a growing disinterest in imperialism) and argue that British imperial
activity existed, with significant continuity, throughout the nineteenth-century, through
this imperialism of free trade, even if the British seized colonies less frequently.
34

Gallagher and Robinson contend, in what is likely their most frequently quoted
statement, that British policy followed the principle of extending control informally if
possible [i.e. through free trade agreements] and formally if necessary.
35
Consequently,
while the British did not often overtly seize land after the 1860s (of course, they did
participate in the Scramble for Africa as well as seize land elsewhere, but this does not

33
John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, The Imperialism of Free Trade, Economic
History Review, Second Series, 6 (1953): 1-15. Also see, John Gallagher, Ronald
Robinson and Alice Denny, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism,
(London: MacMillan, 1981); William Roger Louis (ed.), Imperialism: The Robinson and
Gallagher Controversy (New York: New Viewpoints Books, 1976).

34
Louis, 3-5.

35
Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, xxi.

29
invalidate the argument) Gallagher and Robinson claim that this represented only a minor
deviation from the established British imperial tradition. Further, when the British did
seize territory, such as Egypt in 1881 (although Egypt remained, formally, within the
Ottoman Empire until 1914), Gallagher and Robinson contend that local or domestic
events (i.e. events in the eventual colony) triggered the colonization, instead of a British
ambition to establish formal colonies. The argument that Gallagher and Robinson
present is that if the British had an option, they preferred not to move along Saids path
from imperialism to colonialism; it was only when domestic political activity (in the
imperial territory) necessitated direct colonization that the British established a formal
colonial presence. According to Gallagher and Robinson, this informal imperialism
that the British reportedly preferred could manifest itself in the following ways:
1) The exertion of power or diplomacy to impose and sustain free trading conditions
on another society against its will;
2) the exertion of capital or commercial attraction to bend economic organization
and direction of growth in directions complementary to the needs and surpluses of
the expanding economy;
3) the exertion of capital and commercial attraction directly upon foreign
governments to influence them toward cooperation and alliance with the
expanding country;
4) the direct intervention or influence of the export-import sector interests upon the
politics of the receiving country in the direction of collaboration and political-
economic alliance with the expanding power;
5) the taking over by European bankers and merchants of sectors of non-European
domestic economies under cover of imposed free trade without accompaniment of
large capital or export inputs from Europe, as in China.
36


The model established by Robinson and Gallagher has not seriously been considered
within the context of German imperial and colonial activity, in spite of the fact that it
appears to be quite adaptable to contemporary German imperial activities. While

36
Louis, 3-5.

30
Gallagher and Robinson have been properly criticized on many points of their argument
(and especially on the contention that domestic conflict catalyzed, and sometimes even
required, the establishment of British colonies), its core emphasis on recognizing
imperialism without the presence of colonies means that German activity in the Ottoman
Empire should be evaluated against this model.
37
The official disinterest that the German
government had in the establishment of colonies (under Bismarck) makes a comparison
with imperial activity especially appealing.
This expansion of our understanding of colonialism and imperialism necessitates
that historians also begin to question the assertion that April 1884 constituted a clear
beginning to German imperial history. In spite of his public arguments against colonies,
Bismarck, in April 1884, sent a message directing his officials in Africa to publish notice
of the German protection of what was to become German Southwest Africa.
Predictably, many histories of German colonialism have seized this and begin with some
derivation of the following: On April 24, 1884, Bismarck, chancellor of the then
thirteen-year old German Empire, sent a cable to the German consul in Cape Town to
proclaim imperial protection over the territories
38
The acceptance of 1884 as the

37
There are problems and limitations to this theory, but its main contention that the
British were reluctant colonizers remains an accepted notion in British imperial
historiography. Instead of becoming focused on Robinson and Gallagher, this
dissertation will use the argument that the British were reluctant colonialists and the ways
in which informal imperialism can be established, but will not make arguments about
the most contentious aspect of the controversy, the idea that peripheral crises led to
colonization. Further, this dissertation explicitly rejects the notion of informal
imperialism because, it will be argued, this imperialism was a formal government policy
and, thus, quite intentional, all that differentiates it from intentional imperialism is a
lack of colonies.

38
Zantop, 1. Zantops book is one of the few books that addresses the realities of
German colonial interests before 1884, but she still contends this is a precolonial
31
beginning of German colonialism has almost universal approval within the community of
German historians. However, to accept this, historians must be willing to ignore German
(and especially Prussian) expansion within Europe, as well as German imperial activity in
the Ottoman Empire.
An additional element that makes 1884 appear as a less plausible beginning for
German imperialism is that when historians begin their books with some statement about
24 April 1884 they cannot quote the headlines of the New York Times or the Times
(London);
39
the reason that historians cannot cite major headlines from these papers is
that the papers did not report the alleged change in German colonial policy. On 27 June
1884 (in the first story devoted to German colonialism in that year), the New York Times
flatly stated There was a lively discussion of Germanys colonial policy in the Reichstag
today in connection with the consideration of the proposed treaty of commerce with
Corea [sic.] and
40
The Times (London) is similarly mute on the alleged change in
German imperial policy, reporting on 2 May 1884 about the German fear of trichinosis
from American pork, and on 24 June about the appropriation of funds to increase the
number of steamers to Australia and China.
41
Had 1884 signified a major transition in
German colonial policy, it is reasonable to expect that either British or American

Germany, and thus she still sees 1884 as a seminal change in German colonial history.
Also see: Smith Colonialism and Colonial Empire, 430. Smith is one of the most
established historians of German colonialism.

39
To my knowledge no historical treatment of German colonialism begins with a
newspaper article but I have not reviewed each one.

40
Germanys Colonial Policy, New York Times 27 June 1884, 1:4.

41
Germany, Times (London), 2 May 5, 2005, 5:c; and German Colonial Policy,
Times (London), 24 June 1884, 5:c-d.
32
newspapers would have reported this change. In fact there is no announcement in the
principal newspapers of either country that claims that Germany suddenly became a
colonial power.
The purpose of this dissertation is to argue that German imperialism did not begin
with Bismarcks recognition of colonial territories in Africa in April 1884 and that it is
equally inappropriate for historians to accept the traditional geographic boundaries of
German colonialism. Instead, it will be argued that German imperialism existed in the
Ottoman Empire before 1884. While German imperial activity in the Ottoman Empire
does not adhere to the traditional models or definitions of imperialism, it does provide
evidence of imperialism (and to some degree colonialism) outside of the generally
accepted areas of German colonial activity (i.e. China, Africa, and the Pacific).
To sustain this argument several components of the history must be considered;
consequently, this dissertation will attempt to make use of the resources of political as
well as social history. Using the work of Zantop and related scholars as a model, selected
writings on the Ottoman Empire will be considered as indicators of imperial activity.
However, in the case of the Ottoman Empire the discovery, appropriation, and display of
Ottoman artifacts (especially the Pergamon Alter and Heinrich Schliemanns discovery of
Troy) will also be considered. Further, these unorthodox indications of imperialism will
be complemented by documents from the Auswrtiges Amt. Within this context it will
also be argued that the failure of imperialism to turn into colonialism (especially in the
case of the Ottoman Empire) does not mean that German activity in that area should not
be considered within the historical context of German colonial history.
33
The use of a comparative study of British imperialism will also be important in
considering claims that German activity was imperial. This is especially important as
British imperialists recognized the influence that the Germans were beginning to exert in
the Ottoman Empire and competed with the latter for influence in the Ottoman Empire.
Further, as British imperial historians have considered the activity in the Ottoman Empire
as imperial, providing evidence that German activity there paralleled (strongly) that of
the British increases the basis for considering German activity in the Ottoman Empire as
imperial. The fact that the Germans had political or economic relations with a less
powerful country is not sufficient to claim that the Germans had an imperial policy
towards that country; it is important that an expanded definition of imperialism does not
develop into an impossibly broad idea.
Thus, by considering a variety of archives and documents, it will be argued that
historians have misunderstood the richness of German imperialism. Instead of focusing
on the narrow group of territories that developed into formal German colonies, historians
must consider the entire context of German imperialism. Using the Ottoman Empire as
an example, it will be shown that the spectrum of German imperialism is broader and
richer than most historians accept.












34

CHAPTER III
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE GREAT POWERS: IMPERIALISM AND
EUROPEAN EXPANSION, 1850-1914
The Ottoman defeat at the gates of Vienna in 1683 marked the zenith of Ottoman
expansion into Europe. This defeat also precipitated a permanent change in power
relations between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. While European fantasies about the
fighting abilities and ferocity of the Turk remained, from 1683 it would be the
Europeans who advanced into the Ottoman Empire instead of the Ottoman armies
marching into Europe. This European expansion into the principal territories of the
Ottoman Empire developed its own peculiar form of imperialism (related to Robinson
and Gallaghers reluctant imperialism), in which concerns about repercussions within
Europe generally trumped expansionist desires for the overt seizure of Ottoman
territories.
The reluctant imperialism that developed in the Ottoman Empire in the early
nineteenth-century arose less out of jingoistic ambition for additional territory or prestige,
and, instead, from the British need to secure and maintain strategic positions in the
Mediterranean.
42
This need arose specifically from the development of steam ships, in

42
This form of imperialism related specifically to the principal territories of the Ottoman
Empire. Traditional seizures of land occurred in other non-essential areas of the
Ottoman Empire, such as North Africa, the Red Sea, some Arabian provinces, etc. There
is a historiographic debate in British colonial historiography concerning the establishment
of the Second British Empire, in which a swing to the East meaning China, India,
and to a smaller degree the Ottoman Empire are the representative cases. This position is
best articulated by V.T. Harlow, The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1762-1793
(London: Longmans, 1952). One of the problems with this argument is that it fails to
address the reality that the Americas and Europe remained the most important British
35
the 1820s; after this development the most important communications route between
England and India became the overland route.
43
This route, formally established in
1839, but in existence for at least ten years before that, sent British ships into the
Mediterranean, to Egypt, overland to Suez, and then into the Red Sea. This route became
important in the 1830s because, before the development of steam ships, the British
considered sailing in the Red Sea too risky.
44
With the development of interest in the
overland route, the British established themselves at the three critical strategic locations
from which other powers could have interrupted British communications with India (the
Straits of Gibraltar, the overland parts of the Ottoman Empire, and Bab el Mandeb, the
strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, see Map One). This

commercial concern. Instead of considering commercial concerns as the reason for
British activity in the Ottoman Empire, this dissertation uses geopolitical strategic
concerns.

43
Halford Lancaster Hoskins, British Routes to India, (1928; reprint, New York: Octagon
Books, 1966), 266. While Hoskins book is nearly eighty years old, it has evidently not
been surpassed. Many texts (as recently as 2004) cite it as the best authority on the topic.
Although the route around the Cape of Good Hope remained popular for bulk goods and
less urgent business, the overland route became the most important link between
England and India. Also see, The Overland Route to India, Times (London), 18
October 1838, 3:c.

44
Thomas E. Marston, Britains Imperial Role in the Red Sea Area, 1800-1871 (Hamden,
Connecticut: The Shoe String Press, 1961), 64. This route cut the time to send a letter
and receive a response from two years to a little over one-hundred days (provided
immediate turn around), see: Robert J. Blyth, Aden, British India and the Development
of Steam Power in the Red Sea, 1825-1839, in Maritime Empires: British Imperial
Maritime Trade in the Nineteenth-Century, ed. David Killingray, Margarette Lincoln, and
Nigel Rigby (Rodchester, New York: The Boydell Press, 2004), 68-69 and 75.

36
Figure One. Map of Strategic British Positions.
45


45
Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook (Washington, DC: Government
37
process began in 1830 with the formal inclusion of Gibraltar in the British Empire,
46
and
continued with the seizure of Aden, at the mouth the Red Sea (1839). However, the
establishment of British administration in Gibraltar and at the mouth of the Red Sea
provided the British only two of the three strategic points necessary to protect their
overland route. To secure this route the British also had to establish themselves in the
Ottoman Empire, where Russia (by 1833), was the dominant power. While the British
could not formally colonize the Ottoman Empire (and no evidence exists to indicate they
wanted to, specifically why the British could not do so is explained below) they needed to
control portions (and make sure that Russia would not extend its influence there or
destabilize the Ottoman government) of it to be certain that they could maintain their
communications with India; this was the first step in the establishment of the British
model of imperialism in the Ottoman Empire. Thus, in the 1830s, the British initiated a
series of diplomatic maneuvers that culminated in their replacing Russia as the dominant
power in the Ottoman Empire, and, thus, providing protection for the British overland
route and establishing a peculiar form of imperialism for the Ottoman Empire. Although
British imperialism is not the focus of this dissertation, this British imperial activity
provided the model that the Germans eventually used (almost without revision) to
establish themselves as an imperial power in the Ottoman Empire. While the Germans
lacked the same security concerns as the British, the British model did not require the
same motivations, merely the same methods.

Printing Office, 2005) 87.

46
The British gained Gibraltar, in perpetuity, from the Spanish in the Treaty of Utrecht
(1713); however, the British only formally incorporated it into the British Empire in
1830.
38
The purpose of this chapter is to explain the conditions that led the British, and
eventually other European powers, to impose this peculiar form of imperialism on the
Ottoman Empire. Specifically, this chapter explains the international conditions that
developed, which compelled the British to overcome their reticence to establish
themselves as the imperial power in the Ottoman Empire. These international conditions
arose (immediately) from the development of Russian influence in Constantinople and
the Treaty of Hnkir skelesi (1833), which the British feared provided the Russians a
future opportunity to occupy Constantinople and, thus, the principal areas of the Ottoman
Empire. In addition to explaining the conditions that led the British to become the most
important imperial power in the Ottoman Empire, this chapter will also explain the
elements of the peculiar imperialism that the British developed. Understanding this model
of imperialism is important, because, by 1880, the Germans had appropriated it for
themselves as they sought to become the premiere imperial power in the Ottoman
Empire. The British model of imperialism for the Ottoman Empire represented a
temporary solution to the broad European interest in Ottoman territories, which lasted
from the seventeenth-century into the nineteen-twenties and became known as the
Eastern Question.
47

Conventionally, the Eastern Question centered on two concerns: the debate about
what would happen (i.e. would the European states fight each other or make some general
agreement) when the Ottoman government collapsed and the Ottoman Empire no longer

47
Until the eighteenth-century, the Eastern Question related to Poland, and in the
nineteenth-century the term applied to both China and the territory of Central Asia
(including present day Afghanistan). However, this dissertation considers the Eastern
Question in the context of the Ottoman Empire.

39
existed (both of which were considered inevitabilities),
48
and what would the future
relationship between the Balkan states and the Ottoman government be (sometimes called
the Balkan Question)? Although the defeat of the Ottoman armies in 1683 catalyzed the
Eastern Question, the latter did not appear immediately. Instead, many historians date the
origins of the Eastern Question to the Treaty of Khk Kainardji (1774), in which the
Ottoman government, among other things, ceded a port at the mouth of the Don River on
the Sea of Azov and territories along the Black Sea to the Russians and, importantly, the
Khanate of Crimea (which had been administered by the Turks prior to the treaty)
became an independent state.
49
The Eastern Question usually contemplated the end of

48
Rene Albrecht-Carrie. A Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna,
Harpers Historical Series, ed. Guy Stanton, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958), 40.
The concern about the inevitability of the Ottoman Empires collapse has exercised
historians interested in the Eastern Question for some time. Regrettably, most of these
historians have dedicated themselves to a study of the reasons for the internal collapse of
the Ottoman Empire, often focusing on the decadence or inadequacy of the Ottoman
Sultans of the nineteenth-century. This is an inadequate answer and it must be considered
more broadly, specifically within the geopolitical context of the nineteenth-century. For a
good discussion of this, see: F.A.K. Yasamee, Ottoman Diplomacy: Abdlhamid II and
the Great Powers, 1878-1888 (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1996), 1-2. Also see, Cemal Kafadar,
The Question of Ottoman Decline, Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 4
(1997-1998): 30-75.

49
M.S. Anderson, The Eastern Question, 1774-1923 (New York: St. Martins Press,
1966), xi-9. Also see, Barbara Jelavich, Russias Balkan Entanglements, 1806-1914
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Of course, the Crimea remained a
contested territory, with the Russians seizing it in 1783 and the Crimean War being
fought over it from 1853-1856.
Subsequent treaties supported and reinforced the Treaty of Khk Kainardji,
including the Treaty of Peace (Jassy), signed between Russia and the Sublime Porte on 9
January 1792. Although this strengthened the Russian position it did not dramatically
alter the spirit of the Treaty of Khk Kainardji; thus, instead of detailing every treaty
and agreement between Russia and the Sublime Porte, the Treaty of Khk Kainardji
will serve as the model for Russian expansion towards the Ottoman Empire. See, Jacob
C. Hurewitz, Treaty of Peace (Jassy), in The Middle East and North Africa in World
Politics: A Documentary Record (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), 92-100
40
the Ottoman Empire, but between 1774 and 1914 the Powers (in the late eighteenth- and
all of the nineteenth-century) imposed a series of treaties aimed at preventing the
Ottoman Empire from collapsing.
Scholars who have considered the Eastern Question have generally done so based
on the premise that the Ottoman Empire was on the verge of immediate and uncorrectable
collapse. Conventionally, these scholars explain the dire condition of the Ottoman
Empire by detailing the decadence and corruption within its internal structure.
50
While
this view corresponds with many contemporary understandings of the Ottoman Empire, it
is too simplistic. Instead, to appreciate the condition of the Ottoman Empire in the
nineteenth-century, it is important to recognize the significant role played by international
affairs, which were particularly important because of the Empires geography.
51
Instead

(hereafter cited as Hurewitz, even though later citations will refer to treaties and
documents other than the Treaty of Jassy).

50
Yasamee, 1-2. Another important discussion of the long term reasons for the decline of
the Ottoman Empire is Jack Goldstone, who places the Ottoman Empire within many of
the same financial and demographic crises that faced Europe. Although the nineteenth-
century history of the Ottoman Empire deviates somewhat from the European model,
Goldstone makes a compelling argument for not viewing the problems faced by the
Ottoman Empire as unique to them. See: Jack Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in
the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 354-355.

51
Yasamee, 1. It cannot be denied that the Ottoman Empire faced internal problems,
specifically with tax collecting and independence movements; however, what
differentiated the problems faced by the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth-century from
those of previous centuries was the new international situation, and especially the
technical advantages of the European powers. The Ottoman government had never fully
imposed itself on its provinces, but in the late eighteenth-century these provinces had
more autonomy than they conventionally did. Still the Ottoman government continued to
exist and even attained some success in military, cultural, and economic fields. See:
William Ochsenwald and Sydney Nettleton Fischer, The Middle East: A History 6
th
ed.
(New York: McGraw Hill, 2004), 247 (hereafter cited as Ochsenwald, this serves as the
principal narrative history resource for this chapter).

41
of focusing on the decadence of the Sultan, this dissertation ascribes the weakness of the
Ottoman Empire to, among other things, two major geopolitical issues that challenged the
Empires continued existence. These conditions were: the Empires geographic
proximity to the important strategic positions in the Near East (i.e. the Straits and India),
and the number and proximity of the Empires potential enemies.
52
While the Ottoman
Empire always faced challenges from its neighbors,
53
the consequence of its economic
and technological backwardness, by the nineteenth-century, made the Empires
traditional international problems acute. However, in spite of its relative geographic
vulnerability and the improved military technology of the West, the Ottoman Empire
could not simply be divided among the European powers as other colonial territories of
the period had been (or would be, in the case of Africa), because the colonization of the
principal territories of the Ottoman Empire would upset the European balance of power
and possibly precipitate a European war. A series of treaties signed between 1774 and
1856 created an imperial system in which the Powers could assert themselves in the
Ottoman Empire without upsetting the European balance of power.
Although many factors discouraged the formal colonization, or even partition, of
the principal Ottoman territories,
54
four require explanation (however, these factors can

52
Yasamee, 2.

53
Kafadar, 44-50. Kafadar concludes the Ottoman Empires internal conditions and
the actions of its rulers were insignificant in the face of an irresistible outside power that
simply swept them into underdevelopment. Kafadar, 50. Building on Wallersteins
theories, Kafadar contends that the important explanation for the Ottoman weakness by
the nineteenth-century was the massive economic underdevelopment that began to
impose itself in the seventeenth-century.

54
These conditions did not always exist, and throughout early modern and modern
history, the powers of Europe devised plans to divide the Ottoman Empire. It is not
42
generally be categorized as potential threats to the established European balance of
power). First, unlike Africa and other contemporary colonial territories, all the Great
Powers coveted the Ottoman Empire. The strategic location of the Ottoman Empire, near
the Bosphorus and Dardanelle Straits, as well the Empires position relative to India,
made its principal areas desirable to almost all the European powers. This general
interest distinguished Great Power competition for territory in the Ottoman Empire from
Great Power interest in other imperial territory. A distinction existed because,
conventionally, in most imperial territories only one or two Powers would become
involved. Consequently, most of the European Powers expected that any effort to seize
principal Ottoman territory would result in a major European war, something that most of
them viewed as undesirable. Second, the Empire contained a very large Christian
population (the Orthodox Christians alone counted for approximately twenty-five percent
of the Empires population).
55
Not only did many European rationalizations for empire
often wilt when fellow Christians were the subject of the colonization, but the various
Great Powers had strong connections to different religious groups in the Ottoman Empire
(specifically, the Russians to the Orthodox, the French to the Catholics, and less so the
British to the Protestants; eventually the Germans claimed a special relationship with
Islam). Because these religious groups did not live in segregated territories, the position

important to address these plans here, but many of these plans are collected in: T.G.
Djuvara, Cent projects de partage de la Turquie, 1281-1913 (Paris: Librairie Flix Alcan,
1914). Of course the European powers occupied peripheral Ottoman territories, such as
Algeria or Aden with almost no international repercussions, but intervention in the
principal territories of the Ottoman Empire was the more important issue.

55
Yasamee, 8. Specific demographic statistics from the Ottoman Empire are
tremendously difficult to find and to trust, however this appears to be a reasonable
generalization.

43
of Christians in the Ottoman Empire complicated Great Power colonial ambitions. Third,
the Ottoman Empire remained a rather substantial military power (even in the late
nineteenth-century) and conquering it, or making it an official colony, would have
instigated a prolonged and multi-national war. Although eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century wars had depleted the resources of the Ottoman Empire, conquering it entailed a
greater commitment than the conquest of German Southwest Africa or other
contemporary colonies. Finally, the Great Powers had admitted the Ottoman Empire into
the Concert of Europe in 1856 (in the Treaty of Paris) following the Crimean War; as
such, direct colonization of the Ottoman territories created diplomatic problems.
56
Based
on these limitations this dissertation contends that the Great Powers developed (between
1774 and 1856) a distinctive form of imperialism for the Ottoman Empire that permitted
them to expand into it while maintaining the European balance of power.
57

This peculiar form of imperialism permitted the Great Powers to expand into the
Ottoman Empire without the formal establishment of colonies and, therefore, without
upsetting the balance of power. This policy developed informally and, did not exist as a
formal document, but, instead, as a set of generally understood rules that governed the
ambitions of the Powers while emphasizing the maintenance of the European balance of
power. This distinctive imperial policy had four principal tenets, which included: first, a

56
Ibid., 4; and Barbara Jelavich Russias Balkan Entanglements, 1806-1914 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 138. Yasamee does an excellent job explaining the
differences between the Ottoman Empire and the contemporary colonies of Europe.

57
This peculiar form of imperialism developed by the English coincided with the
development of their first general government policy for the Ottoman Empire. This
policy, a policy that emphasized independence and integrity necessitated the continued
existence of the Ottoman Empire, but permitted the British to intrude as necessary to
maintain this policy. See, Elie Kedourie, England and the Middle East: The Destruction
of the Ottoman Empire, 1914-1921 (London: Harvester Press, 1976), 10.
44
guarantee to maintain the territorial and governmental integrity of the Ottoman Empire;
second, European seizures of peripheral Ottoman territories (such as Aden, Algeria, the
Ionian Islands, etc.) could be tolerated; however, any seizure could not threaten the
continued existence of the Ottoman Empire and, thus, the balance of power in Europe;
third, various powers could establish themselves as the dominant imperial power in the
region, but could not exploit this to the point of creating an imbalance of power in
Europe; and finally, the Great Powers could establish themselves, informally, as the
hegemonic regional power in different parts (i.e. Tunisia, Syria, etc.) of the Ottoman
Empire. This complicated imperial policy governed European expansionist activity in the
Ottoman Empire from 1838 until 1914; however, it required that the European powers
pursue their colonial and imperial ambitions with great care and with the idea of
maintaining the European balance of power as the primary goal.
The extension of the European balance of power to the Ottoman Empire
developed no later than 1833 (and probably sooner) as Britain sought to limit Russian
territorial ambition in the Ottoman Empire.
58
Simultaneously, this policy permitted the
British to become the major imperial power in the Ottoman Empire within five years.
59


58
While this general political philosophy governed European relations with the Ottoman
Empire, there are important exceptions. The French occupied most of North Africa, the
Balkans fell away (with significant assistance from the European powers), and the British
occupied Egypt. While these appear to be deviations from this general philosophy, they
largely fit. The peripheral areas of the Ottoman Empire were never under strong
Ottoman control and thus could be taken without significant Ottoman opposition. More
important areas like Egypt were effectively autonomous (and even rebellious) before the
Europeans conquered and colonized them. The European goal in most of these colonial
conquests was to maintain the Ottoman Empire, even if it necessitated direct European
rule of formerly Ottoman territories (like Egypt).

59
A.L. Macfie, The End of the Ottoman Empire: 1908-1923 (New York: Longman Press,
1998), 98-99; Kedourie, 9-15.
45
Thus, in spite of the geographic vulnerability and strategic desirability of the Ottoman
Empire, the extension of the European balance of power to the former generally limited
the direct European seizure of territory (or the placement of formal colonies) in the
principal lands of the Ottoman Empire. However, the lack of colonies and the reticence
of European leaders to break the balance of power by seizing Ottoman territory, should
not blind historians to the Great Power imperialism that developed within the Ottoman
Empire. Indeed, by 1907, the largest European empire [in the Ottoman Empire and
surrounding areas, including India], that of Britain,numbered ninety-six million
Muslim subjects, almost one-third of the worlds Muslim population.
60
In spite of the
obvious British imperial success in the Ottoman Empire (described in Chapter IV), the
specific conditions of the Ottoman existence and its important geographic position
required a careful policy of imperialism that considered European relations first and
expansionist goals second. However, because the imperialism that developed in the
Ottoman Empire differed from traditional imperial activity, never developing into formal
colonialism (in the principal Ottoman territories), scholars should not fail to recognize the
Great Power imperialism that developed there.
The modern roots of European involvement in the Ottoman Empire, while greatly
accelerated and intensified in the nineteenth-century, began no later than the sixteenth-
century
61
when the Ottoman government awarded the first capitulations (or ahdnames) to

60
McKale, 2. This obviously includes Muslims in India, but a large number in other
places as well. This became important when Wilhelm II declared himself the protector of
the Muslims in 1898 (see Chapter V).

61
William Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East: The Failure of Policy in
Syria and Lebanon (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), 12; also
46
the French.
62
Capitulations granted trading privileges, and were designed initially to
increase trade between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. Additionally, these
capitulations included promises of peaceful relations and, importantly, the right to hire
Ottoman translators.
63
Significantly, the capitulations also permitted the French an
ambiguous right to protect Christian citizens of the Empire;
64
eventually, this became an
important component of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Great Power influence in the
Ottoman Empire.
65
While capitulations may appear simply to be treaties between the

see, Daniel Goffman, The Capitulations and the Question of Authority in Levantine
Trade, 1600-1650, Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 155-164.

62
Following the French and British model, most of the European states received
capitulations from the Ottoman government: Habsburg (1718), Sweden (1737), Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies (1740), Denmark (1746), Tuscany (1747), Prussia (1762), Russia
(1774), and Spain (1782). See, Mautits H. van den Boogert, The Capitulations and the
Ottoman Legal System: Qadis, Consuls, and Beraths in the 18
th
Century, Studies in
Islamic Law and Society, ed. Ruud Peters and Bernard Weiss, no. 21 (Boston: Brill,
2005), 7.

63
Ibid., 3-8. The right to hire translators became an important aspect of these
capitulations. While it may seem insignificant these translators became powerful people
in the Ottoman Empire, able to guide trade and business to the European merchants.
Additionally, these interpreters (or dragoman, to Europeans, and tarjuman to the
Ottomans) began to become increasingly associated with the official representation that
European countries began to send to the Ottoman Empire (beginning with consuls). See
van der Boogert, 3-10.

64
The French developed a protective relationship with the Catholics in the Ottoman
Empire. Eventually, French investment superseded this religious influence. One scholar
concluded a financial protectorate has superseded the religious protectorate which has
for so long guaranteed French influence in the Orient. Quoted in Donald C. Blaisdell,
European Financial Control in the Ottoman Empire: A Study of the Establishment,
Activities and Significance of the Administration of the Ottoman Public Debt (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1929), 5.

65
Shorrock, 12. The French maintained protection for the Catholics in the Ottoman
Empire into the twentieth-century and the Vatican used the French instead of establishing
a formal relationship with the Ottoman Empire. Eventually, the Russians claimed (and
had it recognized in a formal treaty with the Sublime Porte) to protect the Orthodox
47
Sublime Porte (the Ottoman government) and the western governments, the capitulations
originally existed only as a favor granted by an Ottoman Sultan to the European Powers,
and, thus, could be withdrawn at any time and for any reason. After the Ottoman defeat
in 1683, the capitulations, which had been granted under the premise that they were
temporary and at the will of the Sultan, became increasingly difficult for the Ottoman
government to control and rapidly acquired the characteristics of formal agreements (and
thus no longer revocable at the will of the Sultan).
66
The Ottoman position that the
capitulations existed at the whim of the Sultan ended no later than the Treaty of Kk
Kaynarca, which the Sublime Porte signed with Russia on 10/21 July 1774.
67
This treaty
made the capitulations difficult for the Sultan to revoke because, the treaty specifically
addressed the capitulations and, consequently, formalized them.
68
Moreover, by the

Christians. Of course, these competing claims contributed to the start of the Crimean
War, but the also permitted Great Power involvement in the internal affairs of the
Ottoman Government. Additionally, the British and Germans would claim rights to
protect the Protestants and Kaiser Wilhelm II even claimed the right to protect Muslims.

66
The Sublime Porte sent notice to the Ambassadors of the Great Powers on 9 September
1914 notifying them that the capitulations had been canceled. The note read, in part:
TheOttoman Governmenthad, in former times determined in a special manner the
rules to which foreigners coming to the Orient to trade there should be subject, and
communicated those rules to the Powers. Subsequently, those rules, which the Sublime
Porte had decreed on its own accord, were interpreted as privileges, corroborated and
extended by certain practices, and were maintainedas capitulations. U.S. Department
of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, vol. 2 (1914)
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922), 1092 (hereafter cited FRUS, year,
volume, page number).

67
Feroz Ahmad, Ottoman Perceptions of the Capitulations, 1800-1914, Journal of
Islamic Studies 11 (2000): 1-4.

68
Ibid., 1-2. The Turks rejected the Treaty of Kk Kaynarca in 1787 with the start of
the Second Russo-Turkish War, but this war only reinforced the terms of the Treaty of
Kk Kaynarca, and brought the Crimean under Russian control. This is also the origin
of the famous Potemkin Villages. See: James Duran, Catherine II, Potemkin, and
48
conclusion of the eighteenth-century the Sublime Porte recognized the peril of fighting
the Great Powers, and, consequently, sought to avoid conflict the conflict that would have
resulted from removing or restricting the privileges included in the capitulations.
Eventually, it became essentially impossible for any Sultan to revoke these capitulations
without risking war; the capitulations remained until the twentieth-century, when
Ottoman government renounced them, within ten days of the start of the First World
War.
69

Not only did the Treaty of Kk Kaynarca (and the Peace of Jassy) formalize the
capitulations, but it also represented the origins of European imperialism in the principal
areas of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty contributed to the origins of modern
imperialism in the Ottoman Empire because it accelerated the Eastern Question by
granting Russia important concessions; these concessions, specifically the Russian
possession of them, emphasized the strategic importance of the principal Ottoman lands
to the other Great Powers.
70
Among the important concessions included in the treaty were
the provisions that provided permission for the Russia of Catherine the Great to navigate
the Black Sea (merchant ships) and, significantly, for her (commercial) ships to travel
through the Bosphorus and Dardanelle Straits.
71
Importantly, this treaty also provided

Colonization Policy in Southern Russia, Russian Review 28 (1969): 23-36; and
Hurewitz, 105-109.

69
FRUS, 1914, 2, 1092-1094. Even when the Ottoman Empire revoked the capitulations,
the United States and other countries protested and sought to limit this action.

70
Hurewitz, 92-101.

71
Russian interest in the Black Sea and access to the Mediterranean began with Peter
(1672-1725), but it only became a reality with Catherine (1729-1796); however, access to
the Straits and thus the Mediterranean remained a contentious issue. The Treaty of
49
Russia a pretext for intervening in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire, a pretext
that the French, British, and Germans each, at some point (in the nineteenth-century),
claimed applied to them as well. The justification for this intervention came in Article
VII of the Treaty of Kk Kaynarca, which permitted Russia to make
representationsof the new [Orthodox] church at Constantinople, of which mention is
made in Article XIV, on behalf of its officiating ministers, promising to take such
representations in due consideration
72
Eventually, the Russian leadership asserted that
Article VII provided them jurisdiction over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman
Empire; additionally, the Russian government claimed this article provided it the
authority to intervene in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire on behalf of the
latters Orthodox subjects.
73
This article, combined with Article XIV, which required the
Sublime Porte to permit the construction of Orthodox churches and chapels in
Constantinople, made Catherine the Great virtually the protector of the Greek Orthodox

anak between the British and the Ottomans in 1809 officially revoked Russian access to
the Straits, the Straits remained one of the most important issues in European policy
towards the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire traditionally sought to restrict access
to the Black Sea and the Straits because Ottoman leaders believed that permitting any
other countries to actively move through the Straits would compromise the security of
Constantinople. See, Immanuel Wallerstein and Reat Kasaba, Incorporation into the
World Economy: Change in the Structure of the Ottoman Empire, 1750-1839
(Binghamton, New York: State University of New York, 1980), 21.

72
Hurewitz, 95.

73
Eventually, France claimed a similar protection over Catholics in the Ottoman Empire,
the British and Germans claimed to protect the Protestants; Wilhelm II would even claim,
in 1898, to be the protector of the Muslims. The assertion to be the protector of different
religious groups in the Ottoman Empire should not be taken lightly, as it permitted (or at
least justified) direct Great Power intervention in the internal affairs of the Ottoman
Empire.

50
subjects of the Sultan.
74
The Porte recognized the diplomatic humiliation of these claims
and tried to assert a reciprocal right to protect the Muslims in Catherines empire;
however, Russia never acquiesced to this demand.
75
The cumulative affect of these
provisions was to make Russia, briefly, the most important foreign power in the Ottoman
Empire, and to raise concern within the community of Great Powers about the
relationship between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
The Treaty of Kk Kaynarca, thus, was an important step toward the imposition
of European imperialism on the Ottoman Empire. While the British would not establish
themselves fully until 1838, the Treaty of Kk Kaynarca began the extension of
modern European imperialism in the Ottoman Empire.
76
Thus, as the eighteenth- century
concluded, the system that had governed Ottoman-European relations since the sixteenth-
century had been formalized, the Great Powers recognized Russia as a threat to their
strategic interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ottoman Empire was opened to
European intervention in its internal affairs for the first time.
Following the Treaty of Kk Kaynarca, the conditions existed for the rise of
modern European imperialism in the Ottoman Empire. The parallel recognition that
Ottoman military forces could not win a war against any of the Great Powers, under most

74
Ahmad, 3.

75
Ibid.

76
Until the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt, France remained the strongest Ottoman ally.
Although this relationship remained close, it did not rise to the level of imperialism that
Ottoman relations with the European powers did in the nineteenth-century. See: Michael
Hochedlinger, Die franzsisch-osmanische Freundschaft, 1525-1792, Mitteilungen
des Instituts fr sterreichische Geschichtsforschung 102 (1994): 108-164. The issue of
when the modern period begins in the Middle East is complicated, see Hochedinger, 41,
81ff.

51
circumstances, accelerated the conditions that permitted the extension of European
imperialism into the Ottoman Empire. This recognition also catalyzed a shift in Ottoman
foreign policy
77
that ultimately permitted the Ottoman government to accept the
establishment of European imperialism in its empire. This shift in foreign policy was
evident by the early nineteenth-century, and it produced two new principles that quickly
began to direct Ottoman foreign policy. These two new principles were: first, that the
Ottoman Empire sought to avoid both conflicts and firm alliances with any of the Great
Powers and rely on the balance of power principle to mediate any conflict; and, second,
[if the first were impossible] negotiate an alliance with one of the Great Powers and
assure the defense of the Empire, even if it meant temporary subordination.
78
This
willingness to submit to temporary subordination for defensive purposes became the
cornerstone that permitted the Great Powers to extend their imperial presence in the
Ottoman Empire.
79


77
William Hale, The Political and Economic Development of Modern Turkey (New York:
St. Martins Press, 1981), 21-22.

78
Ibid., 20. Accompanying these changes in foreign policy, the Ottoman government also
inaugurated a period of reform (based on European models of government, military, and
economy), known as The Tanzimat (1836-1876). These reforms touched on almost every
aspect of Ottoman government, but the principal goal was to ensure the protection of the
Muslim citizens of the Empire and to assure the continued existence of the Empire. See
Hale, 17.

79
During this period, the position of Foreign Minister became one of the most important
positions in the Ottoman government. This is significant because, previously, this had
been one of the least important Ottoman governmental positions. See, Hale, 19.

52
Although the British became the first modern
80
Great Power to establish itself as
the clear imperial power in the Ottoman Empire, it did not pursue such a position until
the geopolitical circumstances of the 1830s compelled it to seek an imperial policy that
would protect its strategic interests (the overland route to India, chief among them).
The change in geopolitics resulted from three concerns. First, the importance of the
overland route between England and India and the rise of Russian influence in
Constantinople (after the Treaty of Kk Kaynarca); second, the introduction of
nationalism, following the French Revolution,
81
into the already troublesome Balkan
Peninsula; and, finally, Mehemet Alis rapid rise to power in Egypt (discussed below).
82

Starting in the early nineteenth-century, several Balkan territories under Ottoman

80
The historiography of the Middle East and of the Ottoman Empire contains a debate
about the beginning of the modern Middle East. While it is not universally accepted,
many scholars accept 1800 as the beginning of the modern Middle East, a date that
coincides with the origins of Great Power imperialism. See, Ochsenwald, 203.

81
Geopolitics will continue to change and require the British to emphasize the Ottoman
Empire even further. The introduction of the steam ship in the 1830s is a good example
of this. See, Donald Quataert, Suraiya Faroqhi et al., An Economic and Social History of
the Ottoman Empire: Volume Two: 1600-1914, ed. Halil nalcik (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1994), 800 (hereafter cited as Quataert, An Economic and Social
History); also see Jelavich, 27.

82
It is important to note that the Ottoman Empire experienced revolts and revolutions by
different groups within the Empire for decades. Its diversity created many problems
throughout the century, but the introduction of nationalism into the already difficult
circumstances of the Empire complicated matters. It is important to note that the
revolutions in the Balkans were not something unknown to the Ottoman government;
however, with the introduction of nationalism these revolutions became more
complicated. See, Hale, 15-17. Also see: Hugh Poulton, Top Hat, Grey Wolf and
Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic (New York: New York
University Press, 1997), 37-55.

53
dominion sought independence; the Great Powers (especially Russia)
83
supported several
of these independence movements seeking to assert imperial influence through them.
However, exclusive responsibility for the changing geopolitical conditions does not
reside with the events in the Balkan Peninsula. Instead, the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt
facilitated the rise of Mehemet Ali, who contributed, perhaps more than any one else, to
the shift in geopolitical circumstances in the Eastern Mediterranean. This shift began as
Ali extended his influence beyond Egypt into the Balkans and, eventually, into the
principal territories of the Ottoman Empire. These changes ultimately led the British to
become the first modern imperial power in the principal Ottoman territories and to
establish the model of imperialism that the Germans embraced in the 1870s.
84

Mehemet Ali changed the balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean because,
as the ruler of Egypt, he established the regions most powerful and effective military
force, which he used to advance his personal interests. Although Egypt technically
remained a part of the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth-century, the former had
obtained a considerable degree of autonomy and was administered by the Mamluk tribe.
Following the Napoleonic invasion, the Ottoman government sent Mehemet Ali to Egypt
to support the British, hoping Ali would simultaneously return the province to the central
control of the Sublime Porte. When the British left Egypt in 1803, Mehemet Ali operated
with considerable autonomy, and eventually removed Egypts Mamluk rulers; by 1805 he
effectively governed the territory. Following a second British retreat from Egypt in 1807,

83
It is misleading to see Russia as supporting these movements because she believed it
right or proper that these states be independent. The Russians believed that they could
extend their influence into the Balkans through the independence of these states.

84
Shaw, Possessors and Possessed, 268.

54
Mehemet Ali became the ruler of Egypt (although he technically remained under the
authority of the Sultan, the Sultan recognized Alis autonomy). Alis military prowess
and the devotion of his troops discouraged the Sultan from challenging Alis position in
Egypt, and, consequently, the Sultan permitted Mehemet Ali to remain the ruler of Egypt
so long as the latter recognized the Sultans nominal supremacy.
85

Sultan Mahmud IIs (1808-1839) position in the Balkans (and more importantly,
his relationship with Ali) became acute with the start of the Greek Revolution in 1821.
Great Power sympathy for the Greeks resulted in significant European assistance to the
Greek rebels, and therefore significantly complicated the Sultans efforts to quell the
revolt. Facing such a revolt, Mahmud II requested Mehemet Alis assistance in 1824; as
compensation, the Sultan promised Ali the island of Crete. Ali sent his forces to Greece,
and subsequently defeated the Greek rebels in several important battles, but did not end
the revolt. The Great Powers sought a mediated solution to the Greek conflict when they
met for the London Conference (1827). The conference did not produce the desired end
to the war, and the Great Powers quickly attacked the Empire, destroying the
Ottoman/Egyptian naval forces at the Battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827.
86
Ottoman
difficulties increased substantially as the Greek War of Independence spilled over to a
new war between Russia and Turkey (the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829).
87
Although

85
Ochsenwald, 279-281.

86
Ibid., 273.

87
The details of this cannot detain us here, but the Sublime Porte declared war on Russia,
but only Russia. The reason for this, according to one scholar, was that his [the
Sultans] internal weakness made it essential for him to show his independence from
Russia. See, Frederick W. Kagan, The Military Reforms of Nicholas I: The Origins of
the Modern Russian Army (New York: St. Martins Press, 1999), 78.

55
Russia and the Ottoman Empire were at war, the Russians waged a peculiar kind of
war
88
in which they did not involve themselves in the principal Ottoman territories but
fought in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea.
89

The Greek War of Independence and the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829 ended
with the Treaty of Adrianople (Edirne) in 1829. This treaty, signed by Russia and the
Sublime Porte, reestablished the boundaries as they existed before the war (no territorial
gain for the Russians) and required the Sublime Porte to pay an enormous indemnity to
Russia. Additionally, it provided for Russian protection to the Danubian Principalities
of Moldavia and Wallachia, required the Sublime Porte to recognize the Treaty of
London (which established an independent Greece, ultimately under a Bavarian king,
Otho I), provided the Russians further rights to protect the Orthodox Christians in the
Balkans, and, most significantly re-opened the Straits to Russian commercial traffic.
90

Importantly, Russia consequently recognized the benefit of preserving a weak Ottoman

88
Ochsenwald, 273.

89
Ibid. Although Ochsenwald does not offer an explanation, it is reasonable to consider
the balance of power as the reason Russia did not extend herself into Turkey proper. Had
Russia invaded the heart of the Ottoman Empire, the other Great Powers likely would
have considered Russia to have broken the balance of power.

90
Stefan K. Pavlowitch. A History of the Balkans, 1804-1945 (New York: Longman,
1999), 44-47; Jelavich, 88-89; and Ochsenwald 273-274. Pavlowitch discusses the
extension of Russian influence in the Danubian Principalities on 48-50. Also see,
Nicolaw Ciachir, The Adrianople Treaty (1829) and its European Implications, Revue
des tudes sud-est Europennes 17 (1979): 706-713. Othons selection as the first king
of Greece had tremendous problems and was only made after other royal families
declined the invitation, but it did reflect the connection that many in Bavaria felt with
Greece, see: Richard Stoneman, German Scholars and Othos Greece, Dialogos 4
(1997): 70-82; Barbra Jelavich, Russia, Bavaria, and the Greek Revolution of 1862-
1863, Journal of Balkan Studies 2 (1961): 125-150 (hereafter cited as Jelavich
(Balkan)); and, Suzanne Marchand, Down from Olympus: Archaeology and
Philhellenism in Germany, 1750-1970 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).

56
Empire on its southern boarder, and Tsar Nicholas I (1825-1855) ordered his
plenipotentiary to prevent the destruction of Turkey and not to permit Russian troops to
enter Constantinople unless the representatives of the Ottoman Empire refused to sign the
treaty.
91
The Russian goal became a policy of intimidationthe Sultan had to fear
Russia more than any other power, and he had to be willing to turn his policy to suit
Russia at all times.
92
This policy of controlling decisions in Constantinople through
intimidation became one of two tactics that the Russians employed, into the twentieth-
century, to affect the decisions of the Ottoman government; the other was by supporting
the Balkan states in their perpetual effort to separate from the Ottoman Empire.
93

Additionally, the French and the British also recognized the benefit of maintaining the
Ottoman Empire, believing it the most efficacious method of impeding Russian
penetration of the Eastern Mediterranean.
94
Thus, the Treaty of Adrianople had three
important consequences for the geopolitical condition of the Eastern Mediterranean: first,
it recognized an independent Greece and thus led to a new era in Balkan relations with
the Ottoman Empire; second, it led to a shift in relations between the Ottoman Empire
and Europe; and finally, it represented an agreement on behalf of all the existing Great

91
Nicholas I wanted to occupy Constantinople, but he yielded to his advisors and elected
not to, instead agreeing to decide the fate of the Ottoman Empire with the other Powers.
See, Ian W. Roberts, Nicholas I and the Russian Intervention in Hungary (New York: St.
Martins Press, 1991), 5-8.

92
Ibid., 83.

93
Edward C. Thaden, Interpreting History: Collective Essays on Russias Relations with
Europe, Social Science Monographs, vol. 24 (New York: Columbia University Press,
1990), 99.

94
Ciachir, 703 and 696.

57
Powers of the importance of maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman government and its
principal territories.
Although the Treaty of Adrianople brought a resolution to the immediate conflicts
facing the Ottoman Empire, the Empire stood on the precipice of a new conflict, one that
catalyzed the British decision to establish itself as the chief imperial power in the
Ottoman Empire. This conflict developed from the promise Mahmud II made to
Mehemet Ali when the former asked the latter for assistance against the Greek rebels. As
payment for this service, Mahmud II promised Ali Crete, but because of the new Greek
state this was no longer possible; consequently Ali occupied Syria. Although the initial
extension of Alis territory (into Syria) did not cause much concern in European capitals
(France had the most concern but did not send troops), Alis subsequent orders to march
towards Constantinople caused Mahmud II to plead for the European powers to
intervene; only Russia responded.
95
Reflecting on the decision not to aid Mahmud II, the
British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerson (1830-1841) wrote:
What Metternich says of our shirking from helping the Sultan when
Mehemet was at Acre [a city in western Anatolia] and when a word
might have stopped the Pasha [Mehemet Ali] without a blow is
perfectly true, and there is nothing that has happened since I have been
in this office which I regret so much as that tremendous blunder of the
English Gov[ernment](emphasis added).
96


Palmerstons regret over the British decision not to assist Mahmud II, when
Mehemet Ali posed his greatest threat to the Ottoman Empire, developed, principally,

95
Ochsenwald, 275.

96
Charles Webster, The Foreign Policy of Palmerston, 1830-1841: Britain, the Liberal
Movement and the Eastern Question, vol. 1(New York: Humanities Press, 1969), 283.

58
from the privileges granted to Russia in the Treaty of Hnkir skelesi (Unkiar Skelessi)
(1833, signed between Russia and the Sublime Porte) as a reward for Russian assistance
against Ali.
97
Although this treaty purported to be nothing more than a defensive alliance
between the two countries, it was simultaneously more than that and the catalyst for the
British to establish themselves as the dominant power in the Ottoman Empire.
98
The
reason the British reacted with such enmity towards this treaty was that it provided the
Russians a pretext to intervene in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire. The
alliance required the two powers to assist each other if one of them became involved in a
defensive war; the British feared that Mehemet Ali would attack the Ottoman Empire,
Russia would come to the aid of the Porte, and would occupy Constantinople and the
Straits, never surrendering them (and thus, imperiling the British overland route to
India). Additionally, the treaty contained a secret (albeit well known) clause, which
relieved the Sublime Porte of its obligation to provide military aid to Russia. Instead, the
treaty required the Sublime Porte to close the strait of the Dardanelles, that is to say, to
not allowing any foreign vessels of war to enter therein under any pretext whatsoever.
99


97
Ochsenwald, 275; and Hurewitz, 252-253.

98
Although British historians do not always claim that the British became the imperial
power in the Ottoman Empire, they do recognize that 1833, specifically the Treaty of
Hnkir skelesi forever changed the British policy towards the Ottoman Empire and the
Eastern Question. See: Frederick Stanley Rodkey, Lord Palmerston and the
Rejuvenation of Turkey, 1830-1841, The Journal of Modern History 1 (1929): 573.
Although dated, many books and articles still rely on this two part, fifty-five page, article
on Palmerston and the Ottoman Empire.

99
Hurewitz, 253. The Russians feared that if foreign ships could sail into the Black Sea
while Russia was at war, then Russia could be attacked from the South. However, the
British feared that the intention of this treaty was to extend Russian territory south, and
thus they feared for their overland route to India. There is some evidence to indicate
that Nicholas was not interested in extending himself south. See, David Saunders, Russia
59
Because a primary British strategic concern for the Near East was that Russian warships
be prevented from entering the Mediterranean and that British ships could operate in the
Black Sea, the British viewed this treaty as a threat to their position in the Eastern
Mediterranean and, thus, their ability to communicate with India.
100
Consequently, the
British government responded to the treaty on 26 August 1833 with a note of protest from
Lord Palmerston to the Sublime Porte stating: That Treaty appears to Her Majestys
Government to produce a change in relations between Turkey and Russia, to which other
European states are entitled to objectif that treaty should hereafter lead to the armed
interference of Russia in the internal affairs of Turkey, the British Government will hold
itself at liberty to act
101

Palmerstons reaction to the Treaty of Hnkir skelesi developed out of the
British recognition of the strategic importance of a stable Egypt and Eastern
Mediterranean. The principal British concern was that the Ottoman territories, due to the
weakness of the Ottoman government and military, would fall into Russian hands and
thus threaten the overland route to India.
102
The stability of these areas was important

in the Age of Reaction and Reform, 1801-1881, Longman History of Russia, ed. Harold
Shukman, no. 5 (New York: Longman, 1992), 188.

100
Barbara Jelavich, A Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 1814-1914, Lippincott History
Series, ed. Robert F. Byrnes (Philadelphia: Lippincott and Company, 1964), 55 (hereafter
cited as Jelavich, A Century of Russian Foreign Policy).

101
Hurewitz, 254.

102
Jelavich, A Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 55. While the British feared an
extension of Russian influence into the Ottoman Empire, Jelavich contends that the
Russians recognized the difficulties in administering and defending such a large territory,
and, thus, she contends that the Russian government coveted pieces of the Ottoman
Empire rather than the entire whole, as many British officials feared.

60
to the British because the overland route, via Suez (approximately eighty miles from
Cairo to Suez) had developed into the primary route for communications between
England and India. While much bulk traffic traveled between India and Britain via the
Cape of Good Hope, the overland route became popular not only with travelers (in
spite of the challenges of crossing the desert), but also critical in achieving the fastest
possible communications between London and India.
103
As previously mentioned, this
route reduced the time it took for correspondence to be sent to India (and answered) from
two years to approximately one-hundred days.
104
However, maintaining this important
access to India required that the British be able to travel to Suez unmolested. The British
preferred not to formally control this land; Palmerston wrote the Earl of Cromer
regarding the proposed British colonization of Egypt: We do not want Egypt, or wish it
for ourselves, any more than any rational man with an estate in the north of England and
a residence in the south would have wished to possess the inns on the north road. All he
could want would have been that the inns should be well-kept
105
Palmerston also
wrote to the British Minister in Naples, William Temple, in 1833 [that] Turkey is as

103
Hoskins, 233 and 268. Hoskins provides a long detailed history of the development of
the overland routes, but what is important here is to see the strategic value of Egypt and
the Eastern Mediterranean and the importance of these routes even once the Cape route to
India became popular more than the history of the development of the overland routes
themselves. The Italians and French had an established interest in the Red Sea, see:
Foreign Office, Documents on British Foreign Policy vol. 8 (London: H.M. Stationary
Office, 1919), 273-295 (hereafter cited: DBFP: I:B:volume number, page number).

104
Blyth, 68-69 and 75.

105
Quoted in, Earl of Cromer, Modern Egypt (New York: The MacMillan Company,
1916), 92, note 1.

61
good an occupier of the road to India as an active Arabian sovereign [Mehemet Ali]
would be
106

By 1833 the preservation of the land route over Egypt from the Mediterranean to
the Red Sea had become the principal British strategic goal (and the establishment of the
British in Aden (1839) and Gibraltar (1830) provided two of the three strategic locations
that the British required). Maintaining this access did not necessitate colonization of
Egypt, but instead, required reducing the established Russian influence in Constantinople,
which also required British control over Mehemet Ali (whom the British believed,
appropriately, to be the most likely power to challenge the Ottoman Empire, under the
Treaty of Hnkir skelesi if a power attacked the Ottoman Empire, the Russia had a
treaty obligation to help defend the Ottoman Empire, which meant Russian troops into
Constantinople and, in the British estimation, a permanent Russian occupation of the
Straits). Should the Russians control the Straits and occupy Constantinople the British
believed that the overland route would be compromised. Moreover, in spite of Russian
assurances that they had no intention of invading India, the extension of Russian
influence into Afghanistan in 1838 (under Dost Mohammed), after the collapse of the
Persian Empire, exacerbated the British fear of Russian expansion into India.
107


106
Henry Lytton Bulwer, The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston: With
Selections from his Diaries and Correspondence vol. 2 (London: Richard Bentley
Publishers, 1870), 145. Palmerston also expressed his concern about the proposed
expansion of Mehemet Alis kingdom.

107
Hoskins, 275-276. Indian troops entered Afghanistan in 1839, occupying Kandahar
and Kabul to arrest this Russian threat, see Hoskins, 276-277. The First Anglo-Afghan
War (1839-1842) is interesting for many reasons, not the least of which is that the British
did poorly and many historians consider them to have lost. However, the details of this
war are mostly beyond the scope of this dissertation. What is important to understand,
however, is that the British understood the Russians to be a serious and legitimate threat
62
Consequently, the Treaty of Hnkir skelesi, which provided Russia conditions
that made her the dominant power in Constantinople, and permitted Russian troops to
enter the Ottoman Empire if the latter were attacked (and an attack from Mehemet Ali
was always a possibility) threatened the English position in India. As the most important
colonial possession in the British Empire, threats to connections between India and
London could not be tolerated. Moreover, the increasingly close relationship between
France and Mehemet Ali, as well as French expansion into Algeria and Tunis further
threatened the British position, as they feared that the Mediterranean might become a
French lake.
108
Thus, the confluence of the Russian position in Constantinople, French
expansion in North Africa, the unpredictability of Mehemet Ali, and the necessity of
British travel overland in Egypt from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea created the
circumstances that forced the British to overcome their hesitance to establish themselves
as the dominant imperial power in the Ottoman Empire.
Faced with the recognition that the Russian threat in the Ottoman Empire had to
be curtailed and also recognizing that Mehemet Ali had to be stabilized, the British began
a series of diplomatic maneuvers that culminated in the Balta Liman Commercial
Convention between Britain and the Ottoman Empire (signed on 16 August 1838,
hereafter called the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention of 1838, described in
Chapter IV). This convention established the British as the chief imperial power in the

to India. See: James A. Norris, The First Anglo-Afghan War 1838-1842 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1967), 3-31; George De Lancy Evans, On the Practicability
of an Invasion of British India and on the Commercial and Financial Prospects of the
Empire (Cambridge: J.M. Richardson, 1829); also see Christine Noelle, State and Tribe
in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan (1826-
1863), (Surrey, United Kingdom: Curzon Press, 1997), 39-59.

108
Hoskins, 270.
63
Ottoman Empire and restrained the Ottoman ambitions of both Russia and Mehemet Ali.
Although this agreement was a commercial agreement it advanced the British interest in
maintaining the territorial and governmental integrity of the Ottoman Empire by
increasing trade, and thus theoretically also increasing revenue, to the Ottoman
government (although the treaty did not always work as intended).
The British success in the Ottoman Empire between 1838 and 1880 should not
obscure the challenges that the Russians continued to present to the Ottoman Empire.
The most important such example (although there were others) was the Crimean War
(1853-1856), in which the British and French supported the Ottomans to limit further
Russian influence in the Empire. However, the treaty that resulted from the war was
more important than the war itself. This treaty (and the subsequent Treaty of Paris, 1856,
which reaffirmed the original treaty that concluded the Crimean War) instituted what
historians have come to call the Crimean System. The Treaty of Paris formally brought
the Ottoman Empire into the Concert of Europe, and guaranteed that the treatys
signatories would protect the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire and Russia had
to restrict severely its naval strength (even bases) in the Black Sea.
109
Britain, France,
and Russia further codified the Crimean System on 29 April 1856 with a new treaty in
which the signatories explicitly guaranteed the territorial and governmental integrity of
the Ottoman Empire.
110
Consequently, the treaties that concluded the Crimean War, as
well as the treaties of Kk Kaynarca (1774), Adrianople (1829), and Hnkir skelesi

109
Huerwitz, 319; W.E. Mosse, The Rise and Fall of the Crimean System, 1855-1871:
The Story of a Peace Settlement (New York: Macmillen, 1963), 31-33.

110
Huerwitz, 319.

64
(1833), discouraged and then prevented any of the European Powers from establishing
formal colonies in the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, a component of the British Crimean
System directed the British to go to war to maintain the territorial integrity of the
Ottoman Empire (meaning going to war to prevent any power from establishing formal
colonies in the principal territories of the Ottoman Empire).
111
This prohibition, based
principally on the strategic locations within the Empire and the interest in maintaining the
European balance of power, required the British to develop a specific method to extend
their imperial influence into the Ottoman Empire; a model that the German adopted,
almost without revision, in 1880 and used until 1908 (and in some cases until 1914).
Although it is easy to perceive the British as replacing the Russian influence in
the Ottoman Empire following the Balta Liman Commercial Convention, the Russians
remained a powerful influence and threat to the Ottoman Empire. However, after 1838,
the British influence in Constantinople superseded that of Russia; as British officials
furthered their influence with the Sublime Porte, the British grew to be the most
important power in the region. While the British never formally challenged the Sublime
Portes sovereignty, the British increasingly became an important imperial power in the
Ottoman Empire. The subsequent chapter discusses this relationship in three specific
areas: economics and trade, military, and the teaching of imperialism in Britain. The
importance of considering the British example so carefully is that in the 1870s the
Germans appropriated this model (almost without revision) as they extended themselves
into the Ottoman Empire.


111
H. Bayram Soy, Wilhelm II, Weltpolitik, and Abdlhamid II, The Turks 4 (2002):
304.
65

CHAPTER IV
THE BRITISH MODEL OF IMPERIALISM IN THE
OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1838-1880
The signing of the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention of 1838 signaled the
beginning of British imperial supremacy in the Ottoman Empire. While Russia and
France remained active in Ottoman affairs, the British operated as the most powerful and
influential imperial power in the Ottoman Empire until at least the 1880s, when German
imperial influence become increasingly assertive. Through this position, the British
secured their overland route to the Red Sea (and after 1869 the Suez route) and opened
the Ottoman Empire to an increasingly mercantile trade relationship. Moreover, during
this period, the character of the Ottoman government changed, as it embraced western
financial and military reforms, extended its influence into provinces that it had not
effectively governed for decades, and facilitated the construction of railroads, ports, and
roads. Each of these changes accelerated the extension of Great Power imperialism in the
Empire, and cumulatively permit England, France, and Germany to be considered
imperial powers in the Ottoman Empire.
This chapter is an examination of the model of imperialism that the British
imposed on the Ottoman Empire from 1838 until 1880; however, as described in the
previous chapter, the other European powers regulated the potency and character of
imperialism in the Ottoman Empire (through the system of treaties developed from 1774
to 1856). Although the British remained an imperial power in the Ottoman Empire until
the beginning of the First World War, this chapter considers British imperial activity in
66
the Ottoman Empire only up to 1880.
112
The chapter concludes with 1880 because, in
subsequent years, the British imperial influence in the Empire flagged and the Germans
rapidly replaced the British as the most important imperial power in the Empire. Thus,
the subsequent three chapters consider German imperialism in the Ottoman Empire
(beginning in 1880), which the latter based on an appropriation of the British model
described in this chapter. As German imperialism in the Ottoman Empire is considered,
its deviations from the British model will be explained.
This examination of the British model of imperialism is predicated on the notion
that the Great Powers expected the Ottoman Empire to collapse.
113
This model was
based on the demise of the Ottoman Empire, because, while the model permitted the
Great Powers to impose imperialism on the Empire, it prohibited the establishment of
formal colonies (in the principal areas of the Ottoman Empire) as long as the Empire
continued to exist.
114
In fact, as British involvement in the Ottoman Empire waned after
1880, the British worried that if the Ottoman Empire collapsed that they would not have

112
Eighteen-eighty is only appropriate in some circumstances. The discussion of the
British model of finances ends in 1878, just before the Congress of Berlin. The other
topics considered here end in 1880.

113
A balance existed between the assumption that the Ottoman Empire would collapse
and the desire to preserve it. Once the British established themselves as the most
important imperial powers in the Empire, they sought to preserve the Ottoman state as
long as possible (provided it did not require massive British intervention). However, the
British model of imperialism described here was predicated on the idea that the Empire
would fall, and that the imperial powers would then become colonial powers.

114
See: Letter, Joseph C. Grew (American Ambassador) to Secretary of State (Frank B.
Kellogg), 3 October 1929, NARA, R.G. 59, 767.90d 15/14, 5. Grew referenced the
competition between the European powers for position in the Ottoman Empire before the
First World War.

67
the economic basis, with which to justify a political intervention.
115
Although the model
required the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the imperial powers were frequently
satisfied not to hasten (and indeed they often sought to retard) this collapse, as they were
satisfied with their established position. Indeed, the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial
Convention, and other British efforts to bolster the authority and prestige of the Sultans
government, represented a British effort to support the Ottoman Empire and to prevent it
from collapsing. With the establishment of the overland route, the British possessed
the strategic territories in the Ottoman Empire that mattered the most to them. Had the
Ottoman Empire collapsed, the British position would have been endangered (The British
had nothing to gain, and something to lose, if the Empire collapsed. By 1838 they
controlled all the strategic locations important to them, but they could not be sure that
they would control these same areas if the Ottoman Empire collapsed).
Indeed, the model worked as the Great Powers anticipated; when the Ottoman Empire
collapsed, the British and French (the only European Great Powers who could make a
claim for new colonial territory) used their recognized imperial positions to establish
themselves as formal colonial powers in the Ottoman territories.
116
Although the
Germans never established a formal colony in the Ottoman Empire, their imperial activity
adhered closely to this model; had the Central Powers been victorious in the First World
War, the Germans would have been well positioned to establish themselves as a colonial

115
K.A. Hamilton, An Attempt to form an Anglo-French Industrial Entente Middle
Eastern Studies 11 (1975): 49-50. Economic imperialism was a principal element of this
model.

116
The Young Turk Movement made colonialism in present day Turkey difficult, so
European colonies did not develop there; however the European powers formally divided
much of the rest of the Empire among themselves.

68
power in the Ottoman Empire.
117
Indeed, the American Ambassador to Turkey in 1915,
Hans Morgenthau, wrote, regarding a potential German victory: if Germany wins [the
war], she will have such a preponderating position in this country [Turkey] that she
[Germany] will practically govern Turkey.
118

The examination of the British model of imperialism in the Ottoman Empire will
consider three areas of British (and later German) influence: first, economic influence;
second, political and military influence and the educational reforms that accompanied
them; and, third, the teaching of imperialism in Europe through the appropriation and
display of cultural artifacts. Specifically, this model of imperialism permitted the British
to dominate trade with the Ottoman Empire, control its finances and fiscal policy,
contribute to the restoration of the Ottoman military, dramatically alter the Ottoman
educational system (so that it was increasingly secular and western), to develop and
exploit transportation networks (railroads, ports, and roads), as well as appropriate major
cultural artifacts (sometimes against Ottoman law). The cumulative consequence of these
incursions into Ottoman sovereignty permits historians to recognize imperialism even
when the British (and later the Germans) did not establish colonies or assert a strong
public claim to the imperial territory.
Before considering the specific elements of the British model of imperialism for the
Ottoman Empire, it is useful to briefly recall the components of Robinson and

117
Letter, Myron T. Herrick (American Ambassador to France) to Secretary of State
(Charles Hughes), 21 November 1922, NARA, R.G. 59, 767.90d 15/4, 1. This letter
references the ambition for the retention of Mosul by the British.

118
Letter, Hans Morgenthau (American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire) to Secretary
of State, 22 December 1915, NARA, R.G. 59, 762.67/, 2.
69
Gallaghers Free Trade of Imperialism, which include (this definition of imperialism
does not require all of the components to be fulfilled):
1) The exertion of power or diplomacy to impose and sustain free trading conditions
on another society against its will;
2) the exertion of capital or commercial attraction to bend economic organization
and direction of growth in directions complementary to the needs and surpluses of
the expanding economy;
3) the exertion of capital and commercial attraction directly upon foreign
governments to influence them toward cooperation and alliance with the
expanding country;
4) the direct intervention or influence of the export-import sector interests upon the
politics of the receiving country in the direction of collaboration and political-
economic alliance with the expanding power;
5) the taking over by European bankers and merchants of sectors of non-European
domestic economies under cover of imposed free trade without accompaniment of
large capital or export inputs from Europe, as in China.
119


Although Robinson and Gallagher did not require all of these to be fulfilled for
imperialism to exist, the British model will incorporate almost every component of this
system, and in some cases greatly exceed it. However, it is important to note that the
British (in concurrence with Robinson and Gallaghers theory) sought to exert control
without the establishment of formal colonies. Based on this definition of imperialism, as
well as Saids recognition that, in the nineteenth-century, imperialism preceded
colonialism, this chapter will consider the imposition of imperialism on the Ottoman
Empire, beginning with the so-called British model in 1838.
Before considering this British model of imperialism, it is worth noting the
important domestic changes in the Ottoman Empire that contributed to the rise of
European imperialism; specifically, the nineteenth-century Ottoman reforms focused on
incorporating recent European advances in technology and finance into the established

119
Louis, 3-5.

70
Ottoman system. The Ottomans referred to these reforms as the Tanzimat reform
movement (conventionally, simply the Tanzimat), and they lased from 1836 until the
eighteen-seventies; their principal goal was the preservation of the Ottoman state and the
protection of its Muslim citizens.
120
These Tanzimat reforms, and the ones concurrently
imposed by European imperialist powers, provided (among other things) the Ottoman
Empire with its first fiscal budget (1862), brought western military tactics and weapons to
the Empire (as well as European educational systems to make these military reforms
practical, specifically the teaching of science and European languages), and led to the
development of the first Ottoman constitution (1878), all of which facilitated European
imperialism.
British Economic and Commercial Influence in the Ottoman Empire up to 1878
Stable economic relations between England and the Ottoman Empire originated in
the Early Modern Period. However, during the eighteenth-century, British commercial
relations with the Empire (which had been among the strongest in Europe) declined.
Writing in 1799, William Eton described British trade with the Ottoman Empire in the
following way: Formerly, the trade to Turkey was of considerable importance to this
country [England], but of late years it had been languishing, and at last dwindled into a
state of insignificancy, when the present war [Napoleonic Wars] entirely put a stop to all

120
Hale, 17. Conventionally, the foreign minister, Mustafa Reit Pasha (1800-1858) is
credited with developing the Tanzimat. The Ottoman government employed an
intellectual ploy to justify embracing European reforms and influence: that European
advances originated from knowledge of the classics and depended on science and
literature that had been preserved by the Islamic world during the Middle Ages. See:
Shaw, Possessors and Possessed, 95.

71
communication with the ports of the Levant.
121
During the eighteenth-century, French
commercial relations with the Levant surpassed those of the British; however, the
Napoleonic invasion of Egypt convinced many officials in the Porte of French imperial
ambitions for the Ottoman Empire, thus damaging the relationship. While this tension
between the French and the Porte provided an opportunity for the British, British trade
did not enjoy unqualified success following the Napoleonic Wars. An important
explanation for the temporary decline of British trade with the Ottoman Empire (after the
Napoleonic Wars) relates to the decision (guided by the Foreign Secretary, George
Canning, who had a strong interest in the Levant) to dissolve the Levant Company, which
had an established monopoly on trade between the Levant and England. This decision
(based on the arguments of free trade,
122
with the idea that British trade would expand
beyond the capacity of the Levant Company) not only slowed trade relations between
England and the Ottoman Empire, but it also temporarily weakened the British political
position in the Near East. The revocation of the Levant Companys charter contributed to
a diminished British political position, because, until its demise, the company had funded

121
William Eton, A Survey of the Turkish Empire (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies
Publishers, 1799), 472.

122
Free trade was an important idea in nineteenth-century British international commerce.
Generally, this meant that both the British government and foreign governments did not
involve themselves in private commercial relations between citizens of their respective
countries. However, the in the Ottoman Empire notable exceptions developed. See: D.
McLean, British Finance and Foreign Policy in Turkey: The Smyrna-Aidin Railway
Settlement 1913-1914, The Historical Journal 2 (1976): 521; for information on the
British aversion to involvement in private commercial affairs, see: D.C.M. Platt, Finance
Trade, and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815-1914 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1968). The important thing to note is that dissolving the Levant Company fit
within the broader scheme of nineteenth-century British commercial relations.

72
and staffed all the British embassies and consulates in the Ottoman Empire.
123
Thus, as
Europe emerged from the Napoleonic Wars, the English had a weak commercial and
political position in the Ottoman Empire.
Although the English had a limited commercial and political position in the
Ottoman Empire after the Napoleonic Wars, in the later eighteen-twenties and eighteen-
thirties, the British position in the Ottoman Empire improved, and even surpassed that of
the other European powers, of which Russia and France were the most influential.
124
The
British position improved due to the confluence of official interest in developing and then
protecting the overland route and a simultaneous increase in interest in the Near
Eastern markets, largely due to their increasing economic accessibility. The British
considered economic accessibility particularly important because the economic theory

123
Alfred C. Wood, A History of the Levant Company (New York: Barnes & Noble,
1964), 199-203; A Meeting of the Directors of the Levant Company was Held
Yesterday, Times (London), 12 February 1825, 4:a. The Levant Company formerly
controlled British representation in Turkey; the company even had the responsibility of
paying the members of the consular and embassy staff, including the ambassador. See
G.R. Bridge, English Dragomans and Oriental Secretaries: The Early Nineteenth-
Century Origins of Anglicization of the British Embassy Drogntanat in Constantinople,
Diplomacy and Statecraft 14 (2003): 137-152. The Levant Company received its royal
charter in 1581to advance English trade relations with the Levant. See, A. ner Turgay,
Ottoman-British Trade Through the Southeastern Black Sea Port During the Nineteenth-
Century, conomie et Socits dans lEmpire Ottoman (fin du XVIII
e
dbut du XX
e

sicle) 22 (1983): 297. The French also disbanded their Compagnie dAfrique at the same
time and for similar reasons. See: Charles Issawi, An Economic History of the Middle
East and North Africa (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 62 (hereafter cited
as: Issawi, Middle East and North Africa).

124
Although this dissertation (and other publications) appropriately considers Russian
influence in the Ottoman Empire to have diminished after 1838, it is a mistake to ignore
Russia. Russian influence will remain important, and even critical. Moreover, Russian
ambition for territory and influence in the Ottoman Empire will lead to the Crimean War
and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, which produced the Treaty of San Stefano that
was revised by the Congress of Berlin (1878). This conflict existed between
governments as well as between merchants.

73
that directed British commercial (and political) affairs in the post-Napoleonic World
emphasized achieving free trade. This economic theory postulated that if no
restrictions on trade existed, then British commercial superiority would permit British
commercial interests to dominate trade (this is also, clearly, an important element in
Robinson and Gallaghers Imperialism of Free Trade.).
The 1838 Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention (also known as the Balta
Liman Convention, which the British pressured the Sultan into signing, based on threats
from Mehemet Ali;
125
hereafter, cited as the convention when appropriate) established
the formal agreement for the development of a free trade relationship between the
Ottoman Empire and Britain. Among other things, the treaty included the following
provisions: abolishment of all state monopolies and state regulatory activities, British
merchants received an exemption to taxes that the Ottoman government imposed on
internal trade, and British merchants received the right to buy and sell goods at any price
that they wished.
126
Although the terms of this treaty appear to favor the British
(overwhelmingly), it is worth noting that the treaty also fit within the economic theory
that governed Ottoman economic affairs in this period (discussed below). Additionally, it
can be argued that while the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention of 1838
represented the imposition of free trade on the Ottoman Empire, the Convention also
crystallized British interests in maintaining the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire
(especially after the British secured the overland route). Lord Palmerston contended

125
Hurewitz, 265-266.

126
Oya Kymen, The Advent and Consequences of Free Trade in the Ottoman Empire,
Etudes Balkaniques 2 (1971): 49; Hurewitz, 265-266.

74
that free trade would intensify commercial opportunities for the Ottoman government,
thus providing increased financial resources, which would permit the Porte to develop a
stronger army (which would be trained by British officers).
127
Thus, the British believed
free trade would contribute to the protection of the Ottoman Empire.
While British trade with the Ottoman Empire increased significantly after the
1838 Convention, this agreement was, at least in part, a successful effort to retard
Russian commercial and political activities in the Ottoman Empire and, thus, secure the
overland route. However, the convention was simultaneously (and intentionally) an
effective tool in limiting the power of Mehemet Ali, who remained, officially, a subject
of the Sultan, and thus bound to the treaty (even if Ali could disobey the Sultan, he could
not challenge the British, because of their powerful navy). This treaty limited Mehemet
Ali, because he extracted significant revenues from state (Egyptian) monopolies. With
the abolition of all monopolies in the Ottoman Empire, Mehemet Ali lost an important
source of revenue, because between twenty-five and thirty-three percent of Alis revenue
came from monopolies on foreign trade.
128
Although the Convention intended to curb the

127
Engin Akarli, The Problems of External Pressures, Power Struggles, and Budgetary
Deficits in Ottoman Politics under Abdlhamid II (1876-1909): Origins and Solutions
(Ph.D. diss. Princeton University, 1976), 17.

128
Charles Issawi, The Economic History of Turkey, 1800-1914, Publications of the
Center for Middle Eastern Studies, ed. Richard L. Chambers, no. 13 (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1980), 74-75 (hereafter cited as: Issawi, Economic History). Issawis
book is a documentary history, also see 92-95. Recall that the fear of Mehemet Ali
invading the Ottoman Empire and Russia coming to the aid of the Sublime Porte was one
of the most pressing concerns for the British. Ali could not thwart this Convention,
because both the British and the Sublime Porte signed it. In Egypt, Ali deviated from the
economic development occurring in the rest of the Ottoman Empire. He emphasized the
construction of factories and increasing agricultural production, both of which he
intended for export, and he attempted to limit imports (the opposite of the rest of the
75
ambitions of Russia and Mehemet Ali and thus secure the overland route, it had
predictable, but important, consequences for the imposition of British imperialism on the
Ottoman Empire. Among the consequences of the convention was the increased
accessibility of Ottoman markets to the British.
Ottoman markets became accessible to the British partially due to the 1838
Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention, but also because of the recent economic
reforms within the Ottoman Empire, including the destruction of the famous Turkish
Janissary Corps (1826). Although the Janissary Corps originally existed as a component
of the Sultans military (and to some extent in the 1820s it still did), the Janissary had
established impressive commercial privileges, and they had become elite merchants in the
Ottoman cities. As local elite merchants, the Janissaries, who remained powerful because
of their established military training and position within society, became the strongest
advocates for Ottoman protectionism. The destruction of the Janissary Corps (1826)
increased the accessibility of Ottoman markets and encouraged European trade.
129
Thus,
the confluence of the destruction of the Janissary Corps and the signing of the Anglo-
Ottoman Commercial Convention produced an unprecedented period of free trade and
market accessibility in the Ottoman Empire. The British embraced the new commercial

Ottoman Empire, where imports were encouraged and exports discouraged). See: Issawi,
Middle East and North Africa, 18-21.

129
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 763-765. Although the destruction of the
Janissary Corps did arise from Janissary opposition to the introduction of European
military techniques, the authors are correct to emphasize the commercial influence of the
Janissary Corps, which many scholars recognize only in its military context.

76
environment in the Ottoman Empire and used it to establish themselves as the premier
imperial power in the Ottoman Empire.
130

British trade dominance in the Ottoman Empire is most easily illustrated
statistically.
131
Ottoman trade with England increased from 4 million in 1829 to 54
million in 1876 and to 63 million in 1911, an increase of about fifteen times.
132

Further, between 1800 and the rise of German influence in the 1880s, the British
accounted for approximately twenty-five percent of Ottoman exports (mostly agricultural
products) and provided between thirty and forty percent of the imports to the Ottoman
Empire. Furthermore, the British controlled about fifty percent of the foreign investment
in the Empire.
133
Finally, the year before the Convention, 437 British commercial ships,
with a gross tonnage of 86,253, called at Constantinople; ten years later (1848) 1,397

130
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 763. Also see, Charles Issawi, Iranian
Trade, 1800-1914, Iranian Studies 16 (1983): 230-234. Iran (the former Persian
Empire), while different from the Ottoman Empire in many ways, had a similar trade
policy and this policy had similar consequences.

131
For a detailed account of the growth of British trade in the Ottoman Empire see:
evket Pamuk, The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820-1913: Trade,
Investment and Production (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

132
Charles Issawi, Middle East Economic Development, 1815-1914: The General and
the Specific, in The Modern Middle East: A Reader eds. A. Hortani, P.S. Koury and
M.C. Wilson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 183 (hereafter cited as
Issawi, Middle East Economic Development,). This is a slower rate of growth than
much of the world at the same time, but it still permitted the extension of British and
German imperial power in the Ottoman Empire, and it played a larger part in the overall
economy of the Ottoman Empire than trade did in India. Issawi, Middle East Economic
Development, 184. Also see: Roger Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy,
1800-1914 (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2002, reprint), 85.

133
Jonathan Grant, The Sword of the Sultan: Ottoman Arms Imports, 1854-1914, The
Journal of Military History 66 (2002): 10-11 (hereafter cited as Grant, Sword of the
Sultan).

77
British ships with a tonnage of 358,422 called on the same port
134
(a trend that continued
into the late 1860s
135
).
Although the Porte welcomed their relationship with England because of the
protection that the Convention provided against the rampant ambitions of Russia and
Mehemet Ali, this Convention did not receive universal approbation within the Empire.
Opposition to the treaty developed from the resulting, nearly unrestricted, European trade
with the Ottoman Empire, which contributed significantly to the devastation of domestic
commercial enterprises; the Porte sought to remedy this problem by increasing import
duties.
136
However, due to the Capitulations granted in the eighteenth-century (addressed
in Chapter III), the Porte had to seek European approval to raise its own import duties,
which the latter consistently denied.
137
This European control over the tariffs and import
duties was merely the beginning of the European command of Ottoman finances.
Recognition of the benefits accrued by the British under the Anglo-Ottoman
Commercial Convention propelled the French to seek a similar agreement, which the
Porte granted on 25 November 1838. Eventually, most of the European commercial
powers, including: Sardinia, Belgium, Sweden-Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, the

134
Vernon John Puryear, International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East: A
Study of British Commercial Policy in the Levant, 1834-1853 (New York: Archon Books,
1969), 127.

135
British trade with the Ottoman Empire expanded in the 1860s as a result of the
American Civil War. As textile merchants could no longer rely on cotton from the
American South, Egyptian cotton became an increasingly important component of the
Anglo-Ottoman commercial exchange.

136
Issawi, Middle East and North Africa, 19-20.

137
Ibid., 20-21.

78
Zollverein, and Prussia (individually), signed similar treaties with the Porte (all between
1839 and 1841).
138
The willingness of the Porte to sign such treaties developed out of
what Charles Issawi, the preeminent economic historian of the Ottoman Empire, called
the Ottoman antimercantilist policy.
139
This antimercantilist policy, in the words of a
nineteenth-century British observer adopted the extreme reverse of the Spanish fallacies
for enriching and aggrandizing a nation. If Spain determined to admit nothing produced
by any other country than her own colonies, Turkey seized upon the fanciful idea of
becoming rich, prosperous and mighty, by letting nothing go out of, and to let everything
come freely into, her dominions
140
In reality, the relationship developed a mercantile
complexion, because Britain exported its manufactured goods to the Empire and
purchased raw materials, especially cotton, there. This commercial policy permitted the
Powers to extend imperial influence by having commercial and economic monopolies in
many parts of the Ottoman Empire.
141
The Ottoman Empire maintained this economic
theory until the eighteen-sixties, when it began to seek to revise the treaties that
originated from the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention of 1838. However, by the
eighteen-sixties, the Powers had so fully established this relationship that it remained a
reality until the beginning of the First World War.
While the development of trade relations between the Ottoman Empire and
Britain (and Europe in general) is worthy of consideration; the greater issue, relating to

138
Puryear, 126 and 127, ff. 68.

139
Issawi, Middle East and North Africa, 17.

140
Quoted in Issawi, Middle East and North Africa, 17.

141
Pamuk, 68-69.

79
European imperialism, was the growing economic dependence of the Ottoman Empire on
European loans, specifically from Britain and France (later Germany). This dependence
began in 1854 and continued until 1914.
142
Great Power investment in the Ottoman
Empire can be divided into two categories: 1) direct investment into enterprises
(railroads, ports, etc.); and, 2) direct lending to the Ottoman government.
143
However, by
1914 most of the loans that the Empire accepted went to commissions and charges, or
[were] used to repay earlier debts, or to finance wars, or for indemnity payments, or
[were] spent by monarchs in various unproductive ways.
144
This economic condition
fostered a dependant relationship between the Porte and the European Powers and
permitted the latteragain principally Britain and France and later Germany, but also
Austria-Hungary and Russiato advance their imperial ambitions through the
development of bureaucratic entities within the formal Ottoman government. The
imperial Powers eventually established a monopoly on the printing of Ottoman currency,
developed Ottoman financial policy, and regulated the income of the Ottoman
government. This process began with the French and the British, but after 1871,
increasingly involved the Germans. Thus, while all of the Great Powers involved
themselves in trade with the Ottoman Empire, it was the British, French, and German

142
Olive Anderson, Great Britain and the Beginnings of the Ottoman Public Debt, 1854-
1855, The Historical Journal 7(1964): 47-63.

143
Pamuk, 55.

144
Charles Issawi, Middle East Economic Development, 181.

80
domination and control of the Ottoman economy that facilitated the imposition of
European imperialism on the Ottoman Empire.
145

While British trade with the Ottoman Empire influenced imperial activity, the
most important components of British, as well as French and later German, economic
imperialism in the Ottoman Empire were the Imperial Ottoman Bank and the Public Debt
Administration. These two organizations developed from loans extended by the British
and the French to the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War (1853-1856). The
Russian effort in the Crimean War to extend their influence into the Ottoman Empire
catalyzed the concern of the British and the French about Russian interests in the
Ottoman Empire and shattered Ottoman finances
146
(by the time the Ottomans began
accepting loans from the West, the Ottoman government dedicated approximately
seventy-percent of its regular revenues to maintaining the army).
147
Reacting to the fear

145
Although trade relations between the Ottoman Empire and the European Powers do
show mercantilism, these relations are not as compelling a case for imperialism as the
loans and the subsequent economic control that France, England, Germany, and Austria-
Hungary developed. However, the position that the European powers had (as the
Ottoman Empires major creditor) still permits analysis under Robinson and Gallaghers
Imperialism of Free Trade.

146
Andr Autheman, The Imperial Ottoman Bank trans. J.A. Underwood (Ottoman Bank
Archives and Research Centere: Istanbul, 2002), 17. Also see, DBFP, vii: 36-109, which
discusses the support provided by the Crown to the English bondholders. The Sultan and
the Porte had resisted foreign loans for a long time, but the damage from the Crimean
War forced them to surrender this position and accept loans from western bankers, see,
Christopher Clay, Gold for the Sultan: Western Bankers and Ottoman Finance 1856-
1881: A Contribution to Ottoman and International Financial History (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2000): 26 (hereafter cited as Clay, Gold for the Sultan); Christopher Clay,
Christopher Clay, The Financial Collapse of the Ottoman State, 1863-1875, in Daniel
Panzac (ed.) Histoire conomique et sociale de lEmpire Ottoman ed de la Turquie
(1326-1960). Actes du Sixime Congrs Internationale tenu Aix-en-Provence du 1
er
au
Juillet 1992 (Paris, 1995):120 (hereafter cited as Clay, Financial Collapse,).

147
Grant, Sword of the Sultan, 12.
81
of a Russian extension of power into the Ottoman Empire, the British sent armies to the
Crimea, but, more importantly (for the purposes of considerations of economic
imperialism), provided large loans to the Sublime Porte and, eventually, admitted the
latter to the Concert of Europe, and thus guaranteed the integrity and continued existence
of the Empire,
148
following the successful end of the conflict. Although these efforts
temporarily, and in some cases for the long term, bolstered the ability of the Ottoman
government to sustain itself, the acceptance of loans from Britain and France provided
the latter with their most effective medium for the extension of Great Power imperialism
into the Ottoman Empire.
149

Although the specifics of the loans made between the European Powers and the
Porte are not themselves important, it is worth noting that the loans the banks that
controlled these loans frequently floated these loans on the European markets and thus
funded them through private means. Although private investors frequently funded the
loans, the British public perceived these loans to have been endorsed by the government;
a perception that inflamed tensions when the Porte defaulted on its foreign debts. As
previously mentioned, the first loan from the European Powers to the Ottoman Empire
occurred during the Crimean War (until this point, the Porte did not have foreign debt).
This loan for T (Turkish pounds)
150
3.3 million represented the beginning of a
transformation of Ottoman society and government. Following the influx of money from
the 1854 loan, the Ottoman government contracted loans with the European Powers (or

148
Clay, Gold for the Sultan,47.

149
DBFP, I:B:VII, 139.

150
One Turkish pound equaled approximately 0.909 sterling, Owen, 104.

82
citizens of the European Powers) with increasing frequency and under increasingly poor
terms (these loans were frequently, in fact predominantly made by private investors, but
limited evidence indicates that the European Powers encouraged these loans).
151
By
1877, the Ottoman government owed T 268.8 million in loans, which required nearly
thirty-percent of the regular Ottoman finances simply to service this debt.
152
Not only
was the Ottoman government hundreds of millions of pounds in debt, but its poor
economic conditions required accepting more loans to service the debt that the Empire
already had. This situation ended in 1875 when the Ottoman Empire announced the
suspension of debt payments (discussed below).
153
The Ottoman Empire also had very
little choice from whom to accept loans in the decades before the First World War
France, Britain, and Germany constituted the chief capital exporting countries,
154
and
in 1914 their long term loans encompassed seventy-five percent of all the Empires
outstanding international investments.

151
Blaisdell, 38.

152
Issawi, Middle East and North Africa, 65.

153
Blaisdell, 35-37. Blaisdell contends that European imperialist ambitions in the
Ottoman Empire did not manifest themselves through loans until after the 1875
suspension of debt payments. I disagree. The European interest in influencing the
Ottoman Empire began earlier than that as the British sought to protect their overland
route from the French and the Russians. However, I do agree that 1875 is an important
date and that imposition of imperialism accelerated after that. Regardless, by the time the
Germans become important holders of the Ottoman debt, Blaisdell and I agree that the
financial arrangements between the European Powers and the Ottoman Empire
constituted an imperial relationship.

154
United Nations, International Capital Movements During the Inter-War Period (Lake
Success, NY: United Nations, 1949), 1(hereafter cited as United Nations,).

83
The necessity of accepting loans from the British and French permitted the these
Powers to impose themselves on the Ottoman government, and, specifically, to develop
the Imperial Ottoman Bank (which was not administered by the Ottoman state, or even
citizens of the Ottoman Empire, but rather, principally the French and the British, not
even from Constantinople and the administrators represented private bond holders not the
French or British government).
155
The Imperial Ottoman Bank originated out of the
European insistence that the Ottoman government embrace European accounting
standards and practices.
156
The Banks bond holders
157
demanded such reforms because
the disorganized financial structure of the Ottoman government did not permit oversight
of the loans or an accurate understanding of the Ottoman financial condition. Henry L.

155
This was not the first time western powers attempted to establish a bank in the
Ottoman Empire, over the period from 1838 through the founding of the Imperial
Ottoman Bank on 5 March 1863, several substantial attempts had been made for private
western banks to establish themselves in the Ottoman Empire. These are not essential to
the dissertation, except to note that the French and the British had banks there, and
consequently when the Imperial Ottoman Bank was chartered, the Sultan insisted that
both French and British interests participate so that neither country could exert itself too
fully in the Ottoman Empire. See, Autheman, 30-48. The Imperial Ottoman Bank
remains in existence today.

156
Historian Christopher Clay contends that the Ottoman financial system was quite
rational. However, Clay later claims in his book Gold for the Sultan that Ottoman
financial decision making was based on almost universal ignorance about finance
among Ottoman ministers. The chapter on the rational basis of Ottoman was not
available for review, but interested scholars should see, Christopher Clay, The Financial
Collapse of the Ottoman State. Note taken from Clay, Gold for the Sultan, 7, 15 and
575.

157
It is important to emphasize that the Imperial Ottoman Bank represented the
individuals who held bonds in the Ottoman Empire, and not (officially) the governments
of England and France. However, while the Bank did not officially represent London and
Paris, the relationship between the two was quite close. The Powers often extended
themselves through private companies and individuals. These companies did not always
place the imperial interests of the Powers first, and sometimes made sales that injured the
imperialism of the Great Powers, see: DBFP, I:B:XVI, 7.

84
Bulwer, the English Ambassador to Constantinople, wrote Lord J. Russell in June 1860
regarding the structure of the Ottoman financial system:
The first thing necessary for Turkey is financial order, and the first step
towards it was the framing of a regular budget. This as I have stated in
a former dispatch has been done [Bulwer indicates in a footnote that he
has not seen the budget].

But what is still required is, a close examination into, and a strict
control over, the State expenses on one side, and a better organization
as to the collection and distribution of revenue on the other. The Sultan
has promised me, in regard to the first, that each department shall be
forced to furnish every detail of its proceedings to the Mixed Financial
Commission [a commission with both European and Ottoman official
on it to oversee financial affairs], of which I have often spoken, and
which will shortly assume a more general and positive character;
whilst, in regard to the second, the Government has, in a similar spirit,
resolved that proper rules should be laid down by the aforesaid
Commission, and efficiently carried out by a Finance Department,
constituted in a new basis, and containing Europeans with special
knowledge required for the task assigned them.
158


The reform in the Ottoman financial system that Ambassador Bulwer sought did
not happen as quickly as he might have anticipated. However, the eventual development
of the Imperial Ottoman Bank (5 March 1863) did bring remarkable reform and order to
the Ottoman financial system. Interestingly, the Imperial Ottoman Bank did not develop
out of pressure from either the British or French government; rather, it developed because
the loans that the Empire attempted to float in 1860-1861 did not attract buyers (due to
the chaos of Ottoman finances).
159
Without the backing of the Imperial Ottoman Bank

158
DBFP, I:B:VII, 1-2; and Treatment of Christians in Turkey, Times (London), 20
March 1912, 12:b. Also see, DBFP, I:B:VII, 32 for more on the Mixed Economic
Commission.

159
The relationship between the Bank, its bondholders, and the European governments is
difficult to ascertain. The various governments exerted themselves for the bondholders
and used the Bank to advance the influence of specific states, but the relationship appears
to have been informal.
85
(or the later Public Debt Administration), it became increasingly difficult for the Ottoman
government to secure loans in Europe; eventually, almost every loan contracted by the
Ottoman government came through one of these institutions. This importance gave the
banks, their bondholders, and their respective government important political influence in
the Empire. Consequently, seeking to establish this relationship, the Ottoman
government promised the existing Ottoman Bank (a private British bank operating in the
Ottoman Empire) the opportunity to become a bank of issue, if it would assist the
Empire with a new loan. The loan succeeded, and after combining with the French
interest in the Ottoman Empire so that neither the French nor the British would have too
strong a position in Ottoman finances, the Ottoman Bank became the Imperial Ottoman
Bank.
160

The agreement for the establishment of the Imperial Ottoman Bank (signed by the
Ottoman Foreign Minister, among others) included the following provisions (among
others): 1) the bank had a thirty-year monopoly on the issue of bank-notes; 2) the
Ottoman government promised not to issue paper money during the lifetime of that
concession; 3) in Constantinople the bank would be responsible for all of the operations
of the Ottoman Treasury; 4) the bank would pay [out of Ottoman funds] the
governments domestic and foreign debts; 5) it would be the governments financial
agent for both domestic and foreign purposes; and, 6) the Ottoman government
promised not to tax the bank.
161
While the Banks actual decision making bodies and

160
Autheman, 39-41.

161
Ibid., 44-45. Christopher Clay, Western Banking and the Ottoman Economy before
1890: A Story of Disappointed Expectations, The Journal of European Economic
History 28 (1999): 478 (hereafter cited as Clay, Western Banking,). Christopher Clay
86
leaders resided in London and Paris, it is mistaken to thus perceive that the Imperial
Ottoman Bank was a remote administrator of Ottoman finances. While its decision
makers resided in London and Paris, their representatives in Constantinople had access
to the governments accounts, and indeed sometimes actually compiled them; they [the
representatives of the decision makers] worked closely with Ottoman ministers and their
senior officialsoften meeting with them on a daily basis over long periods.
162
As
citizens of the Ottoman Empire recognized the power of the foreign bankers, the Bank, in
response to an outraged public, included a pasha as a token member of the decision
making bodies.
163
In spite of the enormous concessions to the Imperial Ottoman Bank,
the Sublime Porte still had a limited capability to refuse the Banks demands. However,
as the Empires financial situation worsened, and the loans floated in Europe attracted

and Andr Autheman are the most authoritative scholars on the Imperial Ottoman Bank,
both of whom have recently published a book on it. The Ottoman Bank Archives and
Research Centere (Istanbul) supported their research and published their books.
Additionally, each has a number of articles on the subject. However, both have written
rather narrow histories of the Bank and not devoted themselves to the connection
between the bank and imperialism (although the topic is not totally ignored). The issue
of the Imperial Ottoman Bank is one that scholars will find fruitful for study. An
important reason why scholars have not devoted themselves to this important topic is that
most of the archives from the London branch have been recently destroyed, and the
archives in Paris are apparently quite narrow. Further, only recently have the documents
in Istanbul been made available for scholars, but these are in Ottoman Turkish, and,
consequently, beyond the linguistic abilities of many scholars of European imperialism.
See, Edhem Eldem, Archive Survey: The (Imperial) Ottoman Bank, Istanbul, Financial
History Review 6 (1999): 85-92. Also worth noting is Jacques Thobie, Intrtes et
imprialisme franais dans lEmpire ottoman: 1895-1914 Srie Sorbonne, vol. 4 (Paris:
Impr. nationale, 1977); however this book obviously deals with France and it
concentrates on a period outside the scope of the chronological interest of this chapter.

162
Clay, Gold for the Sultan, 4.

163
Autheman, 41-42.

87
fewer investors, the position of the Bank in relation to the rest of the Ottoman
government rose, especially after the failure of a loan in 1873 (discussed below).
As the original five year charter that administered relations between the Porte and
the Bank expired, the two sought a new convention regulating relations between
themselves. This new convention included all of the provisions of the original charter,
but, the 1873 Convention provided the following additional powers to the Imperial
Ottoman Bank: 1) to assuage foreign investors, the Bank accepted the responsibility to
make sure the Ottoman debt was maintained, [and] drawing the necessary funds from
the treasury; 2) it established branch offices; 3) included provisions that increased the
profitability of the bank; and 4) the Bank had an ex officio representative on the
commission that developed the official Ottoman budget.
164
Based on these provisions,
the present historical expert on the Imperial Ottoman Bank, Christopher Clay,
characterizes it as perhaps the most powerful of the European financial institutions
operating in the non-Western world.
165
The Banks power grew as the Imperial Ottoman
Bank absorbed other private European banks, including the Austro-Ottoman Bank,
166

operating in the Empire. The Bank simultaneously developed into the trsorier-payeur
general for the entire Empire.
167
Historian Christopher Clay contends that the Bank had
become so powerful with the addition of privileges (from the 1873 Convention) that the

164
Autheman, 75.

165
Clay, Western Banking, 478.

166
Autheman, 74-78.

167
Christopher Clay, The Imperial Ottoman Bank in the Later Nineteenth-Century: A
Multinational National Bank? in Banks as Multinationals (New York: Routledge
Press, 1990), 145 (hereafter cited as Clay, Multinational Bank,).
88
arrangement amounted to a voluntary acceptance by the Porte of foreign supervision and,
indeed control, of its finances.
168

Although the Sultan, the European powers, and the bondholders of the Imperial
Ottoman Bank were satisfied with the position of the Bank, members of the Ottoman
government (as well as the previously mentioned Ottoman citizens) objected to the
Banks power and influence, claiming that a foreign bank had complete control over
national income and expenditure.
169
This internal opposition required the Sultan to seek
to revise the relationship between the Bank and the Ottoman state. The specifics of this
amendment are less important than the Sultans inability to achieve his goals, which
sought to assert the authority of the state over the Bank. The Sultan could not force his
new demands on the Imperial Ottoman Bank, and the Bank did not grant a single
concession to the Sultan.
170

Although the Imperial Ottoman Bank was a powerful entity in 1875, the influence
of European financial imperialism did not fully begin until the Sultan suspended payment
on his debts, leading to the creation of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration
(discussed in Chapter V). The Public Debt Administration (in which the Germans
increasingly participated, was formed in the Decree of Muharrem (1881); it developed
parallel to, but did not replace, the Imperial Ottoman Bank. However, as discussed below,

168
Clay, Gold for the Sultan, 17. Clay completes the sentence quoted above with the
following an event which seems hitherto to have escaped the notice of historians.

169
Autheman, 80. Provincial leaders also objected because they traditionally collected
revenue for the Sultan. However, the new agreement assigned this responsibility to the
Imperial Ottoman Bank, both centralizing power in the Empire and expanding the
influence of the Bank. See Autheman, 82.

170
Ibid., 81.
89
the Public Debt Administration became a more assertive and imperialistic tool, extending
its imperial powers beyond those of the Imperial Ottoman Bank.
British Involvement in Ottoman Construction, Military, and Governmental Affairs
As English commercial and economic imperialism began to exert itself in the
eighteen-forties and fifties, the British began to involve themselves in the construction of
a transportation network in the Ottoman Empire. The development of this transportation
network, specifically railroads and ports, accelerated the extension of British (and quickly
German) imperial influence in the Ottoman Empire. These railroads contributed to the
acceleration of Great Power imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, because they permitted
increased trade and mercantile commercial development as well as by extending
economic (i.e. banking monopolies) influence in the area. The combination of financial
(banking and trade) and transportation (railroad and ports) monopolies in areas of the
Ottoman Empire tended to facilitate the ability of individual powers to identify specific
areas of the Ottoman Empire as imperial territory. Additionally, the construction of these
railroads increased the financial obligations owed by the Empire to the Powers. Finally,
the concessions granted for the construction of these imperial railroads provided the
imperial powers with limited ownership rights over lands adjacent to the tracks,
sometimes as far as twenty kilometers on each side.
171
The scale of this railroad
development can be illustrated by the fact that, as late as 1850, the Ottoman Empire did

171
Owen, 197. One such example that Owen describes is mineral rights. This initially
applied more to mining than petroleum, but by the twentieth-century these mineral rights
were quite valuable.

90
not have a single railroad track,
172
but, by 1900, the Empire (excluding Egypt) had
seventy-five hundred kilometers of new track.
173
In addition to a non-existent rail
system, the development of steam ships in the 1830s made the Empires ports
increasingly obsolete. Consequently, the Powers also constructed what became the four
principal mid- and late nineteenth-century Ottoman ports. Between 1840 and 1914, the
efforts and ambitions of the imperial Powers transformed the transportation network of
the Ottoman Empire and accelerated the imposition of Great Power imperialism on the
Empire.
Explaining these changes, Charles Issawi contends that three factors contributed
to the European interest in developing a transportation network in the Ottoman Empire;
these factors were: the regions location, the pattern of growth of steam navigation, and
the rivalries of the Great Powers.
174
Responding to these needs and conditions, the
British, French, and Germans built nearly all of the railroads and ports within the
Ottoman Empire between 1853 and 1914, and used this investment to extend their
imperial influence in the Empire.
A clear precedent for the construction of railroads and transportation networks as
tools of imperialism existed in British India; however, the relationship between railroads
and imperialism extended beyond India and even beyond the boundaries of the British

172
Faroqhi, 804-805. It is important to note that Egypt was an exception to this. While it
remained part of the Ottoman Empire, officially, by the 1860s it was so functionally
independent, and, of course, in 1882 it becomes a formal British colony, that it is no
longer considered as part of the Ottoman Empire. This is important because Egypt did
have railroads and it built them quickly.

173
Issawi, The Economic History of Egypt, 149.

174
Issawi, Middle East Economic Development, 181.

91
Empire.
175
In fact, Ronald Robinson (of the Robinson and Gallagher Controversy
mentioned in Chapter II) contends that Industrialized Europe cast its imperial influence
over much of a still agrarian world in the half century before 1914 by building railways in
other peoples countries.
176
Although the British occasionally built railroads merely
for economic gain, the chief rational for building the railroad[was that it] would serve
as an arm of imperial strategy
177
Consequently, the construction of railroads and ports
in the Ottoman Empire illustrates that while a particular form of imperialism was
established for the Ottoman Empire, the differences between this form of imperialism and
the general nineteenth-century imperialism were not so great as to obscure the imperial
objective of the Europeans in the Ottoman Empire.
The parallels between the development of imperial railroads in the Ottoman
Empire and India extended beyond the simple decision to build such railroads. The
parallels extended to the planning and financing of the railroads, because, in both cases,
the government in imperial territory maintained the ultimate control over the quantity

175
It is worth noting that the influence of this imperialism was not only in the imperial
territory. This connection between railroads and imperialism was made in Britain as
well. In 1830 the railroad station at Liverpool on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
was built to resemble the Gate of Grand Cairo and called the Moorish Arch. T.T. Bury
completed a famous painting of this in 1831. See: Michael Freeman, Railways and the
Victorian Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), ii-vi. Such expressions
of imperialism are considered at the conclusion of this chapter, and more fully in chapter
VI.

176
Ronald E. Robinson, Introduction: Railway Imperialism, in Railway Imperialism, ed.
Clarence B. Davis and Kenneth E. Wilburn with Ronald Robinson, Contributions in
Comparative Colonial Studies, no. 26 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 1. While
this book covers Asia, Africa, India, and even South America, there is no article on the
Middle East or the Ottoman Empire.

177
Charles Miller, The Lunatic Express: An Entertainment in Imperialism (New York:
The MacMillan Company, 2001), 7.

92
and direction of railway investment,
178
although the railroads, in both India and the
Ottoman Empire, were constructed to meet British imperial aims.
179
Moreover, in both
territories, the local government financed the railroads through a combination of local
funds and bonds floated in Europe (principally, but not exclusively, London).
180
The
British generally only worried about the beginning and the end of the railway (and not the
stops in between and did not pay for the construction), these railways served British (and
later German) imperial interests because they: 1) permitted the establishment of a
recognized imperial presence in the Ottoman Empire, without formal colonies; 2)
permitted improvements in the internal administration (which facilitated trade) and the
ability of the military to meet immediate security needs (and to protect the
overland/Suez route);
181
3) provided a promising investment as the Ottoman

178
W. J. Macpherson, Investment in Indian Railways, 1845-1875, The Economic
History Review, 2
nd
series, 8 (1955): 177.

179
The railroads were normally constructed from point X to point Y, and required local
governmental approval, but between points X and Y local conditions and governmental
interests directed the specific railroad route. In India economic concerns predominated
and railroads conventionally followed the best route to maximize commerce, in the
Ottoman Empire the railroads often avoided the economically promising areas for
military expediency. These decisions ultimately reflected the specific British interest in
the imperial territory.

180
Bharati Ray, The Genesis of Railway Development in Hyderabad State: A Case Study
in Nineteenth-Century British Imperialism, The Indian Economic and Social History
Review 21 (1984): 54. Ray describes the financing for this railroad in the following way:
Nizams Government [the government of the Indian state where the railroad was being
built] was to provide, with the aid of shareholders, all the capital required for the
construction, maintenance and working of the railway, in spite of the fact that it was the
British who wanted the railroad constructed.

181
Macpherson, 177-185.

93
government guaranteed a return on each kilometer of rail constructed;
182
4) the
construction of such large industrial projects required an enormous amount of money,
permitting the imperial powers to extend additional loans and advance their economic
imperialism; 5) they provided an opportunity to increase trade with the imperial
territory,
183
as the railroads tended to play a major role in providing inexpensive raw
materials, foodstuffs and markets for manufactures to the country whose capital
constructed the railroad,
184
and, 6) the concessions provided limited ownership rights to
the Great Powers along the route of the railroad track, sometimes as much as twenty
kilometers on each side.
185
Generally, the British established themselves in Western
Anatolia after the construction of railroads in that region in the early 1860s, and the
French established themselves in Syria. Beginning in the 1880s, the Germans adopted
this model of imperialism and applied it to Central and Southeastern Anatolia.
186

The intent of the Great Powers was evident, but Ottoman citizens pressured their
government to facilitate the construction of railroads, because such construction provided

182
Owen, 120-121. The Ottoman government promised a specific return per kilometer of
track built.

183
Macpherson, 177-180. Macpherson does a good job explaining why the British
government of India wanted railroads, and some of his reasons have been included here.
It is important to note that while commercial interests were the principal British interest
in India, that military concerns, specifically the protection of the overland or Suez route
to India was paramount in British concerns in the Ottoman Empire.

184
Pamuk, 68.

185
Owen, 197.

186
Pamuk, 69.

94
access to the world market, and better movement for the domestic market.
187
Ottoman
officials inclined to reform (so called Tanzimat officials) also pressured the government
to construct railroads, as a step towards modernization. However, without foreign
assistance, the Porte could not meet this demand because the former did not possess the
necessary technical expertise
188
or financing. In fact, Ottoman efforts to construct
railroads failed, with one exception, because they lacked the technological knowledge.
For example, one railroad constructed, without European assistance, could not climb the
track because the grade was too steep.
189
Thus, the Porte had to rely on the British,
French, or Germans to construct railroads within its boarders, and, consequently, a reform
intended to emancipate the Empire from western economic influence made them [the
Ottomans] more dependant[and] made the whole process of penetration a great deal
more easy.
190

The necessity of permitting the Powers to construct the railroads within the
Ottoman Empire and the external trade that it facilitated emerg[ed] as one of the key
developments in the partitioning of the Empire in the years before the First World

187
Trade within the Ottoman Empire is vastly understudied, partially because much of
this trade occurred on caravans and formal records have not survived. However, it is
clear that before the development of railroads, bulk goods (such as grain) often remained
locked up in the interior, and that consequently costal towns, sometimes only three or
four days from the grain producing areas imported grain, because it was less expensive to
import grain from Europe than to purchase grain transported by caravan. In spite of these
transportation problems, in the nineteenth century, trade within the Empire was greater
than international trade. Owen, 120 and Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 174.

188
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 803.

189
Owen, 121.

190
Ibid., 58. Owens comment is intended to apply generally to reforms in the Ottoman
Empire, but the development of railroads is certainly within the reforms he considers.

95
War.
191
The combination of the transportation monopoly that developed from the
construction of these railroads and the 1838 Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention
(and the similar conventions signed between the Porte and other Powers) permitted
increased imperial control over portions of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, while the railroad
facilitated access to world markets, its construction also enabled the European Powers to
exert their influence in portions of the Ottoman Empire without formally colonizing it.
This occurred because the railroad construction (as previously mentioned) facilitated the
ability of the imperial power to establish a mercantile relationship with a portion of the
Ottoman Empire; these territories (which became increasingly associated with specific
powers) provided inexpensive raw materials to the imperial power and imported
manufactured goods from the imperial power.
192
Further, in many instances, the only
banks in the region [where Powers constructed railroads] were owned by the capital of
the same country. The monopoly position enjoyed by the capital of that European
country in extending agricultural and commercial credit and in transportation blocked
commercial competition from other European Powers.
193
Eventually, the Powers
furthered their investments in their regions of the Empire by building utilities and ports
(where appropriate) along these same railroad routes. As the British lost influence in the
Ottoman Empire (in this case because British companies sold their railroads to the
French), a British foreign office official lamented: there now remains, therefore, only

191
Pamuk, 68.

192
Ibid.; and, DBFP I:B:V, 134-146.

193
Pamuk, 69. Scholars would benefit from increased knowledge of the scope of
European banks outside of the principal Ottoman cities, and the relationship between
these banks and the individual Ottoman territories.

96
one British railway in Asia Minor, that of the Smyrna-Adin Line. As our future
influence and the prosperity of this country must to a considerable extent depend on the
continued success of this company as a British undertaking (emphasis added).
194

Although the British were the first Power to construct railroads in the Empire,
195

other Powers rapidly recognized the value of such construction and thus became involved
in the building of Ottoman railroads. Among these other powers, Austria-Hungary made
the most significant contribution (before the rise of German influence), because an
Austrian, Baron Hirsch, connected Constantinople to Vienna via the Oriental Railway
(completed in 1888).
196
Hirschs accomplishments were eclipsed, however, by the
eventual contributions of Germany. German involvement in the Ottoman railroad
industry began in 1872, when the Ottoman government invited the well known Engineer
Wilhelm von Pressel, to develop a comprehensive plan for the construction of railroads in
the Empire (while von Pressel was German, it is premature to believe that his invitation
signaled the beginning of the extension of German power into the Ottoman Empire,
rather he should be viewed as an individual instead of as a representative of German

194
DBFP, I:B:XVI, 7. Also see: Letter, Grew to Secretary of State (Henry Lewis
Stimson), 3 June 1929, NARA, R.G. 59, 767.90d 15/12. This document emphasizes the
interest the powers (in this case France) had in maintaining their railroads in the former
Ottoman territories after the war.

195
Issawi, The Economic History of Turkey, 148; and Faroqhi, 807. Issawi argues that
railroads were occasionally constructed for reasons other than imperialism, see Issawi,
The Economic History of Turkey, 194.

196
Kurt Grunwald, Trkenhirsch: A Study of Baron Maurice de Hirsch Entrepreneur and
Philanthropist (Jerusalem, Israel: Israel Program for Scientific Translations, 1966), 28-
63; Issawi, The Economic History of Turkey, 148. Like many of the railroad construction
projects, Hirschs led to increasing indebtedness for the Ottoman Empire, but the process
of raising the money for this railroad illustrated the deep financial trouble that the Empire
was in. See: Blaisdell, 37.

97
imperial power). Pressel completed this task, and the Porte accepted his proposal, which
called for a trunk line from Constantinople to the Persian Gulf (2,700 km) and eventually
another eighteen-hundred miles of branch tracks.
197
The purpose of this line, the
Anatolian Railway, was to connect Constantinople with the provincial capitals.
The Porte considered a reliable connection between Constantinople and the
provincial capitals to be an important goal, because the distant provinces conventionally
operated with only the most minimal of oversight from the Ottoman government; due,
partially, to the difficulties of travel.
198
Recognizing the imperial potential of this railroad
(although there was no reason, beyond the size of this railroad that it had greater imperial
potential than other railroads in the Empire), other Powers, including the British (usually
private companies supported by their governments attempted to construct these
railroads), sought to build this line. An official of the Foreign Office, A.H. Layard, wrote
to the Marquis of Salisbury on 5 August 1878:
The Duke of Sutherland has requested me to inform the Grand Vizier
that he [the Duke of Sutherland] is the President of an Association [sic.]
for the construction of a railway from Constantinople to the Persian
Gulf, and to obtain from his Highness a promise that his
schemeshould have the preference over any other that may be
submitted to the Porte on equal terms.

Several schemes for a similar railway have been submitted to the
Porte by various European capitalists and speculators
199



197
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 806. It is important not to place too much
emphasis on Pressel and his representation of Germany. The historical research on him is
slight, but this invitation was extended in the earliest days of German existence and just
as Germany began to exert itself in the Ottoman Empire.

198
Issawi, The Economic History of Egypt, 148-149.

199
DBFP, I:B:V, 130.

98
Eventually, a German company received the contract for the line, and, by 1900, more
than a thousand kilometers had been laid.
200
The combined efforts and ambitions of the
imperial Powers led to the completion of approximately seventy-five hundred kilometers
of railroad track in the Ottoman Empire by 1900.
201
However, this construction catalyzed
the imperial partitioning of the Empire and led individual powers to assert increasingly
powerful imperial claims (unofficially).
In addition to building thousands of kilometers of railroad track, the European
imperial powers also constructed port facilities in Salonica (on the Gulf of Salonica in
modern day Greece), zmir (on the Aegean Sea), Beirut, and Constantinople, these
became the Empires four principal ports.
202
These port facilities, while receiving less
scholarly attention than the railroads, also contributed to the extension of European
imperialism in the Ottoman Empire. Much like railroads, ports permitted the extension
of Great Power imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, because they: 1) provided a
recognized area of imperial territory without formal colonization; and, 2) permitted an
accelerated trade between the Ottoman Empire and Europe (some of the ports permitted
only ships from specific countries, and sometimes only from specific companies, to
utilize them). Additionally, like the land ownership along the railroad tracks, these ports

200
Issawi, The Economic History of Egypt, 149.

201
Quataert, An Economic and Social History,, 804. It is worth noting that the Empire
lost track as it built it. As the Balkan states established their independence, they
appropriated the Ottoman railroad tracks within their newly established boarders. This,
in several cases, constituted thousands of kilometers of track. The Arabian areas of the
Empire did not get track until the twentieth-century, and after the Balkan states left the
Empire, the Empire contained approximately nine-hundred kilometers of track. Ibid.,
807.

202
Ibid., 802.

99
had an imperial elementmonopoly privileges. These monopolies provided foreign
companies control in port areas; the companies used these monopolies to break the
power of the established Ottoman unions by hiring non-union or foreign workers.
203

Before the development of these privileges, Ottoman workers ferried merchandise to the
ships anchored in deeper water. This labor intensive process permitted a strong union
influence in Ottoman commercial affairs. The preference for European (or alternatively
non-union, but Ottoman) port workers contributed to the strengthening of central control
in the Ottoman Empire, because, until the Powers displaced them, the workers unions
had restricted the Portes ability to administer activity in costal areas.
204

Although this study generally does not consider French imperialism, it is
important to note that the completion of the Suez Canal by a French company subsidized
by the state, increased the British imperial interest in the Ottoman Empire. Initially, the
British opposed the canal, fearing it would jeopardize their position in the Ottoman
Empire (and especially in Egypt).
205
Earl Russell explained his concern to his superior at
the Foreign Office about the disquieting potential for the canal to encourage French
colonial settlements in Suez; Russell wrote:

203
Ibid., 803. The specific terms of the monopolies are unclear, but it is clear that the
foreign companies controlled all aspects of the transport of goods in and out of the port
facility. It is important to remember that the existing capitulations already provided
extraterritoriality protection to foreigners in the Ottoman Empire.

204
Charles Issawi, The Adaptation of Islam to Contemporary Economic Realities, in
The Islamic Impact, ed. Yvonne Haddad, Byron Haynes, and Ellison Findly (Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press, 1984). Although not directly related, this chapter generally
discusses the problems Muslims faced with the economic development of the Middle
East.

205
DBFP I:B:VIII, 1-56.

100
The Sublime Porte must be well aware from that Report that the
difference between 10,264 hectares and 1,784 hectares represents the
difference which exists between the quantity of land required for the
purpose of the Canal of Suez according to the judgment of an honest
and dispassionate observer, and the quantity which may be required for
the purposes of colonization, fortifications, and barracks, according to
the ambitious calculations of those who wish to wrest the dominion of
Egypt from the Sultan and his successors.
206


In spite of British concerns, the overwhelming majority of the ships that
ultimately utilized the canal came from Britain. Eventually, the British came to protect
the Suez Canal as they had the overland route. As this interest in the protection of the
Suez Canal became a national concern; Baron Henry de Worms, asked the House of
Commons if the English, in light of the importance of the Suez Canal to British
communications and commerce with India, would propose an international conference to
recognize the preponderance of British interests in the Suez Canal. Specifically, he
wished for Parliament to seek permission for the British to take the necessary measures
to prevent the communications of England with India from being interrupted by any
Power.
207
Thus, Suez, while not constructed by the British, increased British imperial
interests in the Ottoman Empire.
The construction of railroads and ports in Ottoman territories not only
transformed the economic relationship between the Ottoman Empire and the West, but it
also changed the relationship between the Ottoman government and its people. A

206
Ibid., 121.

207
England and Turkey, Eastern Express, 14 June 1882, 229:b (The Eastern Express,
and English language paper printed in Constantinople, apparently numbered its pages
beginning with one and increasing continuously throughout the year, thus in the case of
the article cited here, they reached the 229
th
page on 14 June; also there is no formal
system for citing the columns from this paper, I have elected to reference columns with a,
b, or c, as there are only three per page.).

101
consequence of the large scale construction of railroads was that, for the first time, the
Ottoman government could extend itself relatively quickly into most of its empire.
Before the development of the railroad, the Porte had so little authority in some of its
territories that merchandise traveling between provinces faced informal taxes from
provincial leaders as well as threats from brigands (in 1857, brigands pillaged a caravan
leaving Baghdad and made off with more than five million Turkish liras worth of
cargo).
208
This expansion of the Ottoman governments ability to extend itself into the
provinces was accompanied by a Tribal Pacification Program, which led the Ottoman
government to administer provinces more effectively than it had in decades.
209
This
increased central control enhanced the imperial opportunities of the Powers by removing
threats from brigands and illegal tariffs that provincial leaders often imposed on cargo
transported through (or from) their province. The British railroads recognized these
security concerns and, under guidance from Ottoman officials, these railroads sometimes
initially bypassed areas of economic importance in favor of areas of military
significance.
210

In addition to contributing to major changes in the infrastructure of the Ottoman
Empire, the British model of imperialism also emphasized the support and enhancement

208
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 816. Comparatively, the Ottoman
government borrowed from 1854 to 1914 399.5 million Turkish Lira. See: Grant, 13.

209
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 816. Also see: DBFP, I:B:VI, 181-192.

210
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 807. Recall that the Ottoman Empire, like
the Indian government, had significant influence over the specific routes of the railroads.
It is not surprising that both the Ottoman government and the British would have desired
to send railroads through militarily sensitive areas.

102
of the Ottoman military forces.
211
Robinson and Gallaghers imperialism of free trade
(explained earlier), emphasized the imperial power not becoming directly involved in the
imperial territory. Instead, the imperialism existed through (among others): 1) the
imposition of free trade conditions on the imperial territory; 2) pressure for the imperial
territory to organize and direct its economic activities to meet the needs and surpluses of
the imperial power; 3) taking over by European bankers and merchants of the domestic
economies of the imperial territory.
212
Implementing such conditions on the Ottoman
Empire required the latter to be able to defend itself against external pressure (i.e.
maintain the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire) as well as to control its
provinces
213
(recall that Robinson and Gallagher contend that the move from imperialism
to colonialism occurs because of internal conflicts that require the imperial power to
intervene, thus stability in the Empire decreased the likelihood of the necessity of
imposing colonialism).
214
Consequently, while the importation of weapons or military
advisors was quite common in the nineteenth-century, it had an imperial purpose in the
Ottoman Empire. Moreover, the importation of European military technology and tactics

211
For a short history of early Ottoman military reforms, especially those inspired by
Europe, see: Anton Schaendilinger, Die Entdeckund des Abendlandes also Corbild: Ein
Vorschlag zur Umgestaltung des Herrwesens und der Aussenpolitik des Osmanischen
Reiches zu Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts, Wiener Betrge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit 10
(1983): 89-112.

212
Louis, 3-5, as discussed in chapter I of this dissertation.

213
This occurred in Mesopotamia, see: Mustafa Sitki Bilgin, The Construction of the
Baghdad Railway and its Impact on Anglo-Turkish Relations, 1902-1903, OTAM 16
(2004): 111-116.

214
Louis, 5; discussed in the first chapter of this dissertation.
103
resulted in Ottoman education becoming increasingly western, as it sought to emphasize
science and European languages over traditional Islamic education.
Once among the most feared fighters in all of the Eurasia, the Turks were
marginal and in some cases, ineffective, soldiers by the nineteenth-century. Comprised of
three components, a slave army, a territorial army, and an auxiliary army, the nineteenth-
century Ottoman military resembled the forces of Slueyman the Magnificent (1520-
1566)
215
more than a modern European military. The Porte recognized this, and
instituted reforms intended to modernize the Ottoman armies in the eighteenth-century;
however, the Russo-Turkish War of 1767-1774, which produced the previously discussed
Treaty of Kuhuk Kaynarja, and the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt illustrated the
insufficiency of these military reforms.
216
Part of the reason these reforms failed was the
overt resistance, and even open revolt, from the Janissary Corps,
217
which had been the
basis of Ottoman armies for centuries. Unable to completely disband the Janissary

215
William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (New York: Routledge Press, 1994), 7
(hereafter cited as Hale, Turkish Politics,); also see: Jan Lucassen and Erik Zrcher,
Introduction: Conscription and Resistance. The Historical Context, in Arming the State:
Military Conscription in the Middle East and Central Asia,1775-1925 (London: I.B.
Tauris, 1999), 3-16 (hereafter cited as Zrcher,).

216
In some cases these reforms were quite advanced and were continued in the period
after 1835. Explaining the early reforms and their continuity into the modern era is less
important than to recognize that these reforms began in the eighteenth-century and with
European assistance. The important point for imperialism is the overall change in the
Ottoman military, from a sixteenth-century army to a modern one, all under the guidance
of European advisors, but also the consequences for the general population as traditional
education systems were replaced by an educational program emphasizing western skills:
science, European languages, diplomacy, etc.

217
Hale, Turkish Politics, 10-19. Also see: Stanford D. Shaw, The Origins of Ottoman
Military Reform: The Nizam-I Cedid Army of Sultan Selim III The Journal of Modern
History 37 (1965): 291-306.

104
(initially), Sultan Mahmud II, who disliked the Janissary for both their resistance to
reform and the power they had, even sufficient power to depose a Sultan,
218
debased the
Janissary by removing the standards that had previously guarded entrance into it.
Consequently, a British observer in 1799 could write, [the] character [of the Janissary
Corps] has been more than proportionally degraded, and many of them are notoriously
stigmatized for cowardice, theft and the vilest crimes, whist others, enervated by a city
life and the practice of the lowest trades have nothing military but the name of janizary
[sic.].
219
Eventually, in 1826, Mahmud II disbanded the Janissary Corps. The
destruction of the Janissary Corps, starting with the dilution of its power, and then the
decision to destroy it, marked the end of the traditional Ottoman army; henceforth, the
Ottoman Empire would look to Europe, specifically Britain and Germany (and to a lesser
degree France), to provision and direct the army.
220

The reorganization of the Turkish army had been underway since the eighteenth-
century, but acquired new importance with the destruction of the Janissary (who refused
to accept western reforms) and the implementation of the Tanzimat (1839-1876).

218
The power of the Janissary Corps had led to Sultans being dethroned (Mahmud II
came to power after the Janissary dethroned Sultan Selim III in 1807, and his cousin
Mustafa IV), Mahmud feared this, but even if he was not dethroned, the Janissary were a
very powerful group that exerted power and influence within the empire. The decision
first to dilute that power and then in 1826 to dissolve the Janissary Corps should be seen
as an effort to consolidate power in the person of the Sultan.

219
Eaton, 63-64; also see DBFP, I:B:VI, 140-141.

220
Of course, the exchange went in both directions. In the early nineteenth-century, the
British incorporated Oriental (i.e. Turkish) themes into some of their military uniforms.
See: John MacKenzie, Popular Imperialism and the Military: 1850-1950 (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1992), 40. Also see: W.Y. Carman, Dictionary of Military
Uniforms (New York: Scribner, 1977), 27. Carman contends these accouterments to the
British uniforms were rarely used by the reign of Victoria (ruled, 1837-1901).

105
However, even after the removal of the Janissary, the Ottoman government did not
implement sufficient reforms for European technology and tactics to be effective. An
example of this insufficiency was the failure to deviate, in the mid-1820s, from the
established theory that military leaders were born as such, and thus did not need
significant specialized training or education. Not only did this decision prevent Ottoman
military officers from receiving the necessary education to lead a modern army, but it
also meant that the new officer corps consisted of officers from the Janissary (and other
branches of the old Ottoman army).
221

The arrival of the Prussian Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke in Constantinople,
in 1835, is a reasonable beginning for considerations of imperialism and the Turkish
army.
222
However, even von Moltkes efforts, while considerable, did not result in major
changes, due to the Ottoman-Egyptian War of 1839, and the death of Sultan Mahmud II
six days after the wars conclusion.
223
Mahmud IIs successor (Abdulhamid, 1839-1861)

221
Avigdor Levy, The Officer Corps in Sultan Mahmud IIs New Ottoman Army, 1826-
1839, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 2 (1971): 21-24. The potential
importance of officers trained by European standards was evident. Mehemet Ali used the
French Colonel Sve to train Egyptian officers. Levy, 21. Had the Ottoman government
wanted to change and bring in European officers, the conflict between the Porte and most
of the major European Powers over the independence of Greece would have probably
prevented the European Powers from sending such advisors. The Greek War for
Independence lasted from 1821-1829.

222
Other scholars might disagree with this, as European military advisors had been
present with the Ottoman army since the Ottoman defeat in 1730. This began with
French advisors, who had to convert to Islam. However, by the time von Moltke arrives,
the European advisors do not have to convert, and the Ottoman Army begins to purchase
weaponry from the Continent. See: James McGarity, Foreign Influence on the Ottoman
Army, 1880-1918 (Ph.D. diss., The American University, 1968), 6-16. McGarity would
likely agree with the above statement, as he contends the strongest influences on the
Ottoman army were German, which began around 1880.

223
Hale, Turkish Politics, 20-21. Also see: Jehuda L. Wallach, Anatomie einer
Militrhilfe: Die preuisch-deutschen Militrmissionen in der Trkei 1835-1919
106
carried on the reform movement, and by the early eighteen-forties, the organization of the
Ottoman army resembled a modern European force.
224

The use of foreign advisors to modernize an army is not, by itself, particularly
imperialistic. However, the reorganization of the Ottoman military along European lines
did produce significant changes in Ottoman society (which facilitated imperialism); one
such change developed in the Ottoman educational system. To produce soldiers and
officers prepared to utilize modern military equipment and tactics, an understanding of
mathematics, European languages, and, most importantly, science, was essential. A
recent study of Ottoman educational reform contends: modernization and scientization
[sic.] became intrinsically linked together and a direct relationship was acknowledged to
exist between modern Western science and Ottoman military revival.
225
Consequently,
the ulema (Islamic religious establishment), which conventionally administered the
Ottoman educational system and emphasized the development of the perfect Muslim,
(and thus did not teach modern science or western languages), was gradually replaced by
an educational system that emphasized science. The first such reform movement was the
development of the rdiyes, which instructed graduates of the ulema in grammar,
history, science and mathematics. This reform movement reached an apex in 1839 when

(Dsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1976), 15-29. Also see: Walter Goerlitz, History of the
German General Staff, 1657-1945, trans. Brian Battershaw (New York: Praeger Press,
1972), 71-73.

224
Hale, Turkish Politics, 22. However, even this army had problems and had not fully
modernized. See: DBFP I:B:V, 95-117.

225
Berrak Burak, Science, a Remedy for all Ills, Healing the Sick Man of Europe: A
Case for Ottoman Scientism, (Ph.D. diss. Princeton University, 2005), 32.

107
secular education became the norm.
226
Increasingly, primary Ottoman education focused
on the study of European languages, science, while specialized education (often from
early ages, especially in the case of the military) occurred in modern diplomacy, the
military, law, etc. Sultan Mahmud II began the process of westernizing education to
improve the military, and, by 1860, the Empire had its first staff college.
227
Further
examples of this specialized, western education were the Mlkive Mektebi schools, which
trained future Ottoman diplomats, and was based on the French Grandes Ecole,
228
and
the Mhendishne military academy.
229
Referring to the Galatasaray Lyce, a secondary
school whose language of instruction was French, a recent scholar wrote that the French
supported this hoping to include the Ottoman Empire in their colonialmission.
230

Not only did the Ottoman Empire face the problems of an antiquated military and
an educational system based on religion, it also lagged behind in military technology (by
the 1840s). During the late eighteenth-century, the Empire made enough weapons to be
considered self-sufficient, and a recent scholar explains that the Ottoman production of
firearms[was within] the technological mainstream in the 1790s..
231
In spite of this

226
Ibid., 57.

227
Hale, Turkish Politics, 23.

228
Corinne Lee Blake, Training Arab-Ottoman Bureaucrats: Syrian Graduates of the
Mlkiye Mektebi, 1890-1920 (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1991), 4.

229
Burak, 32.

230
Shaw, 23-24.

231
Jonathan Grant, Rethinking Ottoman Decline: Military Technology Diffusion in the
Ottoman Empire, Fifteenth to Eighteenth-Centuries, Journal of World History 10
(1999): 198 (hereafter cited as Grant Rethinking Ottoman Decline); and Grant,
Sword of the Sultan, 10. Grant expresses his surprise at how little attention the change
108
assertion, which implies that the quality of Ottoman firearm production approximately
equaled that of the Powers, in 1799 William Eaton observed:
Their [Ottoman] musket-barrels are much esteemed, but they are too
heavy; nor do they possess any quality superior to common iron
barrels, which have been much hammered, and are of soft Swedish
iron. They are thus made: round a rod of iron they twist soft old iron
wire and forge it; then they bore out the rod, part of which often
remains, according as the wire was thick or thin, and the bore large or
small
232


Regardless of whether the Ottoman firearms met the technological standards of
the Powers in 1800 or not, by 1840, the western advances in rifled barrels made Ottoman
arms factories obsolete.
233
Henceforth, the latter would require a massive importation of
European arms, tactics, and instruction, first from Britain then from Germany.
234

Based on the recognition that the Ottoman Empire would import arms instead of
attempting to manufacture them, the Times (London) reported:
The Turkish Government lately resolved to re-arm the whole of their
infantry, and to adopt the best rifle that could be found. For a long time
already they had been converting their muzzle loaders to Sniders, but
these have been superseded in the estimation of the best authorities by
certain small-bore rifles, it was determined to adopt one of the latter. In
consequence of this determination of the Government there have been
recently gathered together in Pera agents of all the known rifle
manufacturers in the worldthe Sultan himself cut short the questions

in armaments sales to the Ottoman Empire has received. See: Grant, Sword of the
Sultan, 12.

232
Eaton, 74.

233
Grant Sword of the Sultan, 14.

234
It is a slight exaggeration to claim only Germany and England supplied arms to the
Ottoman Empire, before the 1877-1878 war with Russia, the Ottoman Empire purchased
a large number of firearms from the United States, however the overwhelming majority
of the arms purchased by the Empire, between 1840 and 1918, came from Britain and
Germany.

109
[to the rifle manufacturers] with all their complications by deciding in
favor of the Martini-Henry rifleAs all the patents for the Martinin-
Henry rifle are held in England by one company, the order will
necessarily be executed in that country.
235


Essentially, from 1840 until the conclusion of the First World War, the Ottoman army
remained dependant on European weapons and leadership to rectify its two great
deficiencies: discipline and technology.
236

Capitulating to the reality that the Empire could not compete with European
weapons, domestic military production shifted to clothing and other such low-tech
military needs; however, this placed the Ottoman Empire in a precarious position.
Ottoman officials recognized the danger in becoming dependant on one foreign country
for weapons; thus, the Empire elected to import arms from all the European powers,
237

although England initially had the greatest share. However, this policy effectively
translated into the following reality: while the purchase of individual rifles and pistols
issued to an Ottoman soldier might come from any of the European powers, or even the
United States, Germany provided the overwhelming proportion of the Empires artillery

235
The Turkish Army, Times (London), 12 July 1872, 4:e.

236
This section briefly introduces the importation of European military technology to the
Ottoman Empire, and it concentrates on the equipment that the army would use. It is
important to note that very similar statements could be made about the Ottoman Navy. It
used almost exclusively British technology (but also French, and even some from
Norway). However, the inclusion of this history appears to duplicate what is already
included about the army.

237
Grant, 15. It is difficult to distinguish the motivation for arms sales from the Powers to
the Ottoman Empire, and part of the difficulty arises from the likelihood that there was
not a single motivation. Certainly the Powers were interested in greater Ottoman control
of the provinces within the Ottoman Empire and in the stability of the Empire, however
they were also interested in increasing trade with the Empire. The shipment of arms and
weaponry to the Ottoman Empire likely contributed to both goals.

110
and Britain provided the overwhelming proportion of the Empires naval technology and
ships.
238
While the impressive English position in the sale of arms to the Ottoman
Empire, before 1880, was not hegemonic, after the Germans began to extend themselves
into the Ottoman Empire in the 1880s, the English position fell and the German position
increased.
239

The transformation of the Ottoman military, in terms of both military technology,
discipline, and its educational system, is an important component in the extension of
European imperialism in the Empire. As Robinson and Gallagher indicated in their
theory of imperialism of free trade the European powers preferred not to intervene
directly in the security and administration of the imperial territory. However, the
weakness of the Ottoman military, which made it vulnerable from within as well as from
external powers, had to be corrected. With the modernization of the Ottoman army, the
Ottoman military could extend its influence and protection throughout the principal
Ottoman territories. Additionally, the Tribal Pacification Program that accompanied the
improvement of the Ottoman military permitted greater (and freer) European trade with
the provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
In addition to transforming the Ottoman economy, infrastructure, and military,
British imperial influence also began to exert influence over Ottoman domestic politics.
The most important example of this is the British effort to end the slave trade in the

238
Ibid., 15-17.

239
Ibid., 20-26. This is one of the only places where the Germans probably had a larger
influence than the British, this is discussed in greater detail in chapter V.

111
Ottoman Empire.
240
The British effort to end the slave trade did not originate in the
Ottoman Empire; rather, this was a policy that the British adopted in the eighteen-forties
for their colonies. The British first incorporated this into their Ottoman policy in 1847,
when British pressure encouraged the Sultan to issue a ferman (order) giving the
British the right to search suspected slave ships and to seize them if they indeed had
slaves aboard. British control of the Gulf made this easier, but slave traders still sought
to continue their trade in spite of this British naval supremacy. The policy culminated in
1880 with the Anglo-Ottoman Slave Trade Convention.
241
While the details of the
British anti-slave trade movement in the Ottoman Empire are interesting they are less
important than the recognition that the British extended this colonial policy to the
Ottoman Empire.
British Cultural Imperialism
In addition to controlling Ottoman finances, being the primary recipient and
originator for goods traded from and with the Ottoman Empire, building a transportation
network intended to advance imperial interests (at Ottoman expense), and contributing to
the restructuring of the Ottoman military and educational systems, the British engaged in

240
The British made a distinction between the slave trade and slavery. The documents
relating to this explicitly state that the British had some cultural sensitivity to Ottoman
slavery and thus they intended only to end the slave trade. The issue of Ottoman slavery
is complicated because technically most of the Ottoman citizens were slaves to the Sultan
and it was not, conventionally, considered degrading to be such a slave. When slavery
and the slave trade are discussed here, it is intended to mean slaves in service to private
persons or companies.

241
Y. Hakan Erdem, Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and its Demise, 1800-1909 (New
York: St. Martins Press, 1996), 67, 71-72, and 99-100. The Sultans ferman simply
recognized the reality of the British position in the Persian Gulf, and the British wish for
the Sultan to appear to govern his own territory. It is unlikely the Sultan had much
choice in the issue of the ferman due to the powerful British position in the Gulf.

112
an active policy of appropriating Ottoman treasures and artifacts. Much as the
construction of transportation networks or the control of Ottoman finances contributed to
Great Power imperialism, the appropriation and display of archaeological treasures
contributed to imperial relationship between England and the Ottoman Empire.
242
The
purpose of this section is to introduce the imperial elements in the British appropriation
and display of archaeological artifacts from the Ottoman Empire, as well as briefly
introduce the importance of such manifestations of imperialism.
European interest in Ottoman archaeology, and to be more precise, the
archaeological artifacts, developed from late eighteenth-century Hellenism;
243

consequently, Europeans initially sought Greek artifacts. The modern appropriation of
Ottoman artifacts (and in this case only technically Ottoman, because Greece was, in the
eighteenth-century, part of the Empire) began with the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier in
1784, but the most recognized of the early appropriations came in 1800 from the British
expedition led by Lord Elgin. Lord Elgins appropriation of the friezes from the
Parthenon on the Acropolis catalyzed British archaeological interest in the Ottoman
Empire.
244
Beginning with the appropriation of the marble friezes, the British began a
sustained campaign that uncovered and appropriated archaeological artifacts from the

242
A social science scholarship exists that considers the implications of the display of
foreign artifacts in museums, this is discussed further in chapter VI. However, a good
treatment may be found in Elizabeth Hallam and Brian Street (eds.), Cultural
Encounters: Representing Otherness (New York: Routledge, 2000).

243
Shaw, 62-63.

244
Ibid., 70-71. The marbles did not receive a proper display in the British Museum for
decades. See: Edward Miller, That Noble Cabinet: A History of the British Museum
(Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1974), 194-195. Miller also notes that the display
of antiquities clearly differed from the display of ethnographic material, see: 222.

113
Ottoman Empire, most notably in Egypt, Mesopotamia (present day Iraq), and the area
around the Red Sea. These discoveries occurred concurrently with the broader European
movement to build national museums intended to represent and celebrate the nation.
245

These museums were to assert an identity, [and] a public culture,
246
that transcended
politics and even royalty; archaeological artifacts from the Ottoman Empire formed the
core collection for many of these museums (including the British Museum, the national
museum of England).
Parliament founded the British Museum in 1756, and among its original collection
were Egyptian lamps, papyri, and other small artifacts from the collector Hans
Slone.
247
As previously mentioned, British archaeological interests extended beyond
Egypt, as English archaeologists appropriated the friezes from the Parthenon, treasures
from Mesopotamia, and artifacts from the area around the Red Sea. The collection of
artifacts from the Ottoman Empire was so intense, that, by middle of the nineteenth-
century, the British Museums general collection concentrated almost entirely on ancient
Rome, Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia.
248
The collection of these artifacts continued
throughout the century, and, in 1888, a contemporary author wrote: The department of

245
Gwendolyn Wright (ed.), The Formation of National Collections of Art and
Archaeology, Studies in the History of Art, ed. Franklin Kelly, vol. 47 (New York:
University Press of New England, 1996), 9.

246
Ibid.

247
Brian Fagan, The Rape of the Nile: Tomb Robbers, Tourists, and Archaeologists in
Egypt (New York: Westview Books, 2004), 42 (hereafter cited as Fagan, Rape of the
Nile).

248
Bernard Porter, The Absent Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in
Britain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 88 (hereafter cited as Porter, Absent
Minded Imperialists).

114
Egyptian and Assyrian Antiques is constantly receiving additions[that are] of infinite
importance.
249
Although many of the excavations that produced these artifacts
originated privately, the British government (usually through the British Museum)
eventually accepted financial responsibility for most excavations in the Ottoman
Empire.
250
Moreover, the discovery and study of these artifacts received significant
attention in the British press (depending on the artifact, some artifacts, such as mummies
received more attention than others),
251
and British citizens recognized it as a component
of imperialism. Part of the reason that these Ottoman artifacts can be considered imperial
is that similar Indian artifacts (and to a lesser degree, artifacts from other parts of the
British Empire) had been appropriated and displayed in England (imperial museums
existed all over the British Isles).
252
Even where individuals may not have had the
opportunity to encounter imperial artifacts personally (for geographic, economic, or
social reasons), this form of imperialism would not necessarily have been foreign to
them. One manner in which the display of imperial artifacts diffused to the greater

249
Unsigned, The British Museum and its Place in the Nation, Museums and Art
Galleries 1888, 219 (hereafter cited as Unsigned, British Museum,).

250
J.E. Curtis and J.E. Reade, Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British
Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995), 11 and 14.

251
Porter, Absent Minded Imperialists, 93. Also see: The Great Discovery of Mummies
at Thebes, Times (London) 19 August 1881, 3:d; Corn Found with Mummies, Times
(London) 28 March 1859, 7:f; Examination of a Mummy Times (London) 16 March
1827, 2:f; and, Dissection of an Egyptian Mummy, Times (London) 16 December
1830, 7:a.

252
Shelton, 158; Mildred Archer, India and Archaeology: The Role of the East India
Company, History Today 12 (1962): 272-279; and Alan Trevithick, British
Archaeologists, Hindu Abbots, and Burmese Buddhists: The Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh
Gaya, Modern Asian Studies 33 (1999): 635-642.

115
population was though the visual art of the period, and, specifically, the art that depicted
the Ottoman Empire, which concentrated on two general themes, [the] archaeological
and [the] Biblical.
253

The Ottoman government, contrary to some historical accounts,
254
recognized the
value of the artifacts excavated and appropriated by the Europeans. In a limited effort to
curtail this activity, the Ottoman government began to develop its own museum, refused
to grant permits for European excavators, and passed the Antiquities Law of 1874, the
Antiquities Law of 1884, and the Antiquities Law of 1906. However, due to the strength
of the European position in the Ottoman Empire, these efforts failed to check European
seizures of Ottoman artifacts, and, in many cases, these laws and restrictions were simply
ignored.
255
For example, historian Wendy Shaw described Heinrich Schliemanns willful
disobedience to Ottoman law in the following way: By the time Schliemann excavated
Troy in 1870, the Ottoman government had established a pattern of granting foreigners
permission to excavatehalf of the antiquities found would go to the Ottoman
governmentSchliemann broke [the] agreement and secretly exported all of his finds to

253
Kathryn Elizabeth Monger, The Mythologizing of Egypt in Late Nineteenth-Century
British Art, (Ph.D. diss. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2003), 2. Monger
continues that those [paintings] of an archaeological nature were quite common,
Monger, 2.

254
Fagin, Rape of the Nile, 54-55 and 57.

255
Shaw, 72-74, 89-96, 108-30. By 1906, these laws had greater authority, but the
Europeans generally maintained the artifacts that they desired. Shaw continues and
explains that thereafter, all of Schliemanns excavations were observed by armed Turkish
guards to make sure he provided some of the artifacts to the Ottoman government.
However, there was a recognition that Schliemann could not be forced to comply with
Ottoman law.

116
Greece in 1874.
256
This disregard for Ottoman sovereignty continued after the First
World War
257
and was evident to the Turkish delegation to the Lusanne Conference,
where the position of Turkey was negotiated by the Allies and the Turks. At the
conference, the mal-treatment of the issue of antiques and archaeological research by
the Allies provoked strenuous protests from the Turkish delegation,
258
who insisted on
increased authority over their land and artifacts.
The importance of these artifacts originated from the general informality of the
British Empire (as previously discussed),
259
which, according to a recent scholar,
featur[ed] [very] little in the concerns of the great majority of early and mid-
Victorians...
260
If the great majority of Victorian Britons did not find the Empire a part
of their daily existence, providing evidence of British imperial activity might have
assumed an increased importance. A recent study of nineteenth-century British art
contends that artists were generally very careful to depict archaeologically correct
backdrops and objects, easily corroborated by the viewer form knowledge of the many
objects in the British Museum.
261
This indicates that at least a significant proportion of

256
Shaw, 74-75.

257
It is worth noting that the British had related troubles in India. While India was under
more direct form of imperialism, British archaeologists did not simply have the authority
to do exactly as they wished in India. See: Trevithick, 635-656.

258
Grew to Department of State, Memo, 24 Jan 1923, NARA, RG 59, 767.68119F&M
3/7, 8.

259
Richards, 1-7.

260
Porter, The Absent Minded Imperialsts, 134.

261
Monger, 11.

117
the artistically inclined citizens of Britain were familiar with the displays in the museum.
A contemporary author writing about the museum wrote: So many people have visited
the British Museum that it is not necessary to give more than a few brief particulars of its
characteristics.
262
Moreover, such displays addressed foreign audiences as well, by
defining British imperial interests; the development of world fairs and exhibitions
accelerated the ability of the Powers to use art and artifacts to define their imperial
influence. Even cursory considerations of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Antwerp
Expedition of 1894, etc. indicate that the display of imperial artifacts and treasure had a
profound influence on the domestic, as well as foreign, population.
263

The use of artifacts, whether in national museums or great exhibitions, to clarify
the relationship between the imperial power (Britain) and the imperial territory (the
Ottoman Empire) is only one example of the broader use of culture to advance
imperialism. Artifacts are an unusually effective tool in explaining this, because, in many
cases, the value in them is inherently obvious (i.e. they are valuable if for no other reason
than they are made of valuable materials), and they could not have been appropriated
without taking them from the imperial territory (which is itself an illustration of imperial
power). However, the display of artifacts is far from the only example of the use of
culture to convey imperialism. The scholar most associated with the study of the
relationship between culture and imperialism is Edward Said, whose books Orientalism
and Culture and Imperialism catalyzed the debate about the relationship between the

262
Unsigned, British Museum, 216.

263
Jeffrey A. Auerbach, The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1999), 137-140.

118
European Powers and the nineteenth-century Middle East by focusing on the association
between culture and imperialism.
Saids principal contention was that the nineteenth-century academic discipline of
Oriental Studies facilitated the imposition of European imperialism on the territories of
the Ottoman Empire. While Said provided other characteristics for the Orientalism that
he studied, he defined nineteenth-century Orientalism in the following way: in short,
Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over
the Orient.
264
As explained in the first chapter of this study, Said contends that
imperialism precedes colonialism and he further argues that it can be achieved by
economic, social, or cultural dependence.
265
Among the indicators of this dependence,
Said used novels (but paintings, and other such representations would be appropriate as
well) to illustrate the significance of the British and French (he devotes almost no
attention to German) cultural influence in the Ottoman Empire.
Conventionally, literary scholars have understood nineteenth-century British
literature to have had only a peripheral interest in the British Empire. Said disagrees and
his works argue that through consideration of novels by Charles Dickens, Daniel Defoe,
Jane Austen, and others, the literature of Victorian England had a powerful influence in
clarifying the relationship between Britain and the Middle East.
266
Although Saids

264
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vantage Books, 1994), 3 (hereafter cited as
Said, Orientalism).

265
Said, Culture and Imperialism, 9.

266
Said almost exclusively uses the term Orient, but he also avoids addressing India or
Asia, so this dissertation replaces Orient with Middle East and Ottoman Empire.
Keith Windschuttle, Cultural History and Western Imperialism: The Case of Edward
Said, The Historical Journal 1 (2000/2001): 173-175.
119
methods have been criticized, it is useful to briefly consider a few examples, most
importantly, his treatment of Dickens novel Great Expectations, completed in 1861.
Said devotes considerable attention to this novel, but the aspect of this consideration that
is important is Dickens classification of Egypt (which did not join the British Empire
until 1882) as a British overseas territory;
267
Said also connects the activities of Henry
James character Ralph Touchett from Portrait of a Lady (1880, serialized in the Atlantic
Monthly before its publication as a book in 1881) in Egypt and Algeria with imperialism
in the Ottoman Empire.
268

Critics object to Saids use of few sentences about Egypt or Algeria to claim that
these Victorian novels belong not only squarely within the metropolitan history of
British fiction,
269
but also in the study of imperialism.
270
However, the debate about
Saids use of sources is less important here than the recognition that nineteenth-century
authors such as Dickens and James referred, as early as the 1860s, to Egypt as a part of a
British overseas territory. Indeed, one of the criticisms of Said is factual, claiming that,
in 1861, Egypt belonged to the Ottoman Empire and not to England.
271
Consequently, the

267
Quoted in Windschuttle, 177. Also see: Said, Culture and Imperialism, xv-xvii.

268
Said, Culture and Imperialism, 63.

269
Ibid., xv.

270
This is one of the main objections made throughout Windschuttles article.

271
Windschuttle, 177.

120
number and frequency of Dickens statements about Egypt is less important than the
recognition that he considered it, in 1860, to be an area under British control.
272

Although Said does not devote himself to the study or consideration of visual art,
it is worth noting that some British painters paid particular attention to the Ottoman
Empire. Regrettably, scholars have not devoted themselves to the study of the
objectification of Islamic nationsin British academic painting,
273
but it is possible to
appreciate that the academic paintings focusing on an exotic or decadent Islamic Egypt
worked to justify contemporary imperial policies
274
often before the formal British
colonization of Egypt. Similarly, visual arts justified the imperial relationship between
Britain and her other imperial territories.
275

Although scholars have not completed a comprehensive study of the relationship
between British art and the Ottoman Empire, it is clear that individual artists in this
period found a commercial market for their depictions of the East. One such artist (who
was Scottish, but whose works sold in London and throughout England) was David
Roberts (1796-1864). Roberts traveled to the Ottoman Empire following the completion
of the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention in 1838 and remained there, principally

272
Said also does not devote much attention to newspapers and magazines. One satirical
magazine, Punch, published satires on Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. Notably, most of
the places in the magazine were either prominent in international affairs or British
imperial territories. See: Unsigned, That Infidel Earl! Punch 11 November 1882, 222.

273
Monger, 11.

274
Ibid.

275
Kamille T.H. Parkinson, Philip John Bainbrigge and the Group of 1838: Imperial
Landscapes and The Colonial Art Scene in Canada, (Ph.D. diss., Queens University
(Ontario, Canada), 2005).

121
in Egypt and Syria, for more than a year. Roberts paintings did not concentrate on
depictions of persons (as one might expect if Said had considered visual art), but rather
on accurate representations of architecture and landscape.
276
The use of visual arts,
such as those by Roberts, had an established imperial context. Roberts paintings existed
within a context in which the formation of the Victorian publics image of India and
Africa owed much to the work of British landscape painters traveling abroad.
277
Finally,
it is worth noting that beyond visual arts, archaeological artifacts, architecture, and
literature an additional way in which cultural imperialism manifest itself was through the
display of animals from colonies and imperial territories in British zoos
278
for
example, the birth of a camel in Manchester was deemed worthy of coverage in the Times
(London)
279
.
Conclusion
The British involvement in the Ottoman Empire, including control of Ottoman
finances, changes in Ottoman military and educational systems, the appropriation of

276
J. Harris Proctor, David Roberts and the Ideology of Imperialism, Muslim World
88(1988): 47.

277
Tim Barringer, Imperial Visions: Responses to India and Africa in Victorian Art and
Design, in The Victorian Vision: Inventing the New Britain John M. MacKenzie (ed.),
(London: V & A Publications, 2001), 317. Barringer includes information on Roberts as
well as on painters who focused on India and Africa; also see: Todd Burke Porterfield,
Art in the Service of French Imperialism in the Near East, 1798-1848: Four Case
Studies, Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University, 1990. Photography eventually replaced
painting as the medium that conveyed imperialism, see: Anne Maxwell, Colonial
Photography & Exhibitions: Representations of the Native and the Making of European
Identities (London: Leicester University Press, 1999).

278
Harriet Ritvo, The Animal Estate. The English and other Creatures in the Victorian
Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 217-222.

279
Birth of a Camel in Manchester, Times (London) 26 March 1864, 12:d.
122
Ottoman artifacts, the development of an imperial transportation network, etc., allows for
British activity in the Ottoman Empire, between 1838 and 1880 to be considered
imperial. While this model of British imperialism did not precisely replicate the
imperialism used by the British in the rest of the world, it does contain a number of
strong and significant parallels (i.e. emphasis on trade, economic dominance,
appropriation of cultural artifacts, etc.). Importantly, however, nineteenth-century British
imperialism did not require uniformity; in fact, recent scholarship emphasizes the lack of
coherence that British imperialism, in general, had:
In its piecemeal administration, effected through trading companies
such as the East India Company, the Royal Niger Company, and the
Imperial East Africa Company, a mosaic of semiautonomous provinces
and an assortment of paramountcies, viceroyalties, dominions and
protectorates, as well as fiscal and military policies, British influence,
while exercised to protect and expand important trade routes, lacked
any over all coherence (emphasis added).
280


Thus, while the model of imperialism that the British established for the Ottoman Empire
differed from that used in India or other places in the world, the lack of colonies and the
emphasis that the imperial relationship between England and the Ottoman Empire placed
on commercial affairs placed the Ottoman Empire (or portions of it) well within the
recognized sphere of British imperial policy.
The British managed to establish their particular form of imperialism on the
Ottoman Empire in the period between the signing of the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial
Convention in 1838 and the rise of German influence in the Empire around 1880.

280
Anthony Alan Shelton, Museum Ethnography: An Imperial Science, in Cultural
Encounters: Representing Otherness ed. Elizabeth Halam and Brian Street (New
York: Routledge, 2000), 156-157.

123
However, after 1880, Germany began to take an increasingly important position in the
Empire, eventually replacing Britain as the most important imperial power in the
Ottoman Empire. A recent scholar contends that the British influence flagged after 1880
because, British policy makers came to [the] conclusion that the Ottoman Empire was
not a viable state any more [after about 1880]and they expected that the Empire was
sooner or later to collapse.
281
Although the British believed that the Ottoman Empire
faced collapse by the 1880s, the Germans believed it could be sustained longer. Thus, the
Germans began to replace the British in the imperialism that had been established for the
Ottoman Empire. The British recognition that the Ottoman Empire was no longer viable
led to increasingly less capital investment (i.e. railroads, ports, etc., but trade remained)
and loans. The Germans recognized the decreased British interest in investing in
Ottoman projects as well as the concurrent decline in interest in loaning money to the
Sublime Porte, and, consequently, the Germans began to replace the British in these
areas. Thus, as the Germans recognized the intentional decline in British interest in the
Ottoman Empire, the Germans began to embrace the imperial model established by the
British and exert German influence in the Ottoman Empire.
There is no indication that the German imperial expansion into the Ottoman
Empire was more aggressive or assertive than the British or French. Rather, the Germans
used the model established by the British (and previously adopted by the French as well)
to assert themselves in the Empire. This German imperialism intended to provide
Germany an equal position in the Ottoman Empire, there is no belief that the Germans
intended to establish a formal Middle Eastern colonial system, or any other major

281
Bilgin, 117.
124
deviation from the established British model for Ottoman imperialism. Consequently, the
subsequent chapters describe the flagging of British interests in the Ottoman Empire and
the German effort to establish themselves as an imperial power in the Ottoman Empire.




















125

CHAPTER V
THE RISE OF GERMANY AND GERMAN ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM IN THE
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
With regard to the Colonies, I believe that we must learn gradually.
The military system has already been abandoned, and we are learning
more and more to imitate the English and to direct our Colonists and
turn them to profits as merchants.
282

--Reichskanzler Prince Hohenlohe (1897)

Since the signing of the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention of 1838, the
British had maintained themselves as the chief imperial power in the Ottoman Empire.
This position permitted them to assert their interests in the affairs of the Empire, but it
also restrained the ambitions of the Russians and Mehemet Ali. Moreover, the strength
of the British position (and the significance of its investment in the Near East, as well as
the protection of the overland route and later the Suez Canal) fostered a British interest
in preserving the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire. However, the dual policy of
maintaining the Empires territorial integrity and exerting imperial influence by providing
large loans ended with the Portes 1875 bankruptcy (discussed below) and with Lord
Salisburys (Robert Cecil, 1830-1903) appointment as British Foreign Secretary in 1878.
Salisbury believed that the Ottoman Empire was irrevocably doomed to collapse,
283

and that the Empires recent defeat by the Russians (the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-
1878) signaled the end of its independence; henceforth [Salisbury believed] the Sultan

282
Friederich Curtius (ed.), Memoirs of Prince Chlodwig of Hohenlohe- Schillingsfuerst:
Authorized by Prince Alexander of Hohenlohe- Schillingsfuerst, trans. George W.
Chrystal (New York: AMS Press, 1970), 2: 487.

283
Yasamee, 57.
126
would survive, if at all, as a client of one of the Great Powers.
284
This perception of
the Ottoman Empires future (based on the recent loss to Russia and the announcement
that the Ottoman Empire would not make further debt payments) discouraged the British
from continuing in the role of Ottoman protector after 1875. Moreover, it also indicated
a conclusion to the Crimean policy, which, since 1854, directed Britain to go to war to
prevent the breakup of the principal territories of the Ottoman Empire.
285
Indeed, not
only did the British hesitate to remain the Empires protector, but, in 1882, the Eastern
Express (Constantinople) characterized the relationship between the Porte and England as
estranged.
286
The British reticence to accept the position of Ottoman protector meant that
the Porte had few appropriate Powers from which to choose. The Porte had few suitable
prospects because, since the Prussian defeat of France (1870), the Porte did not consider
the French (who had actively colonized peripheral portions of the Ottoman Empire) an
adequate protector. A protective alliance with St. Petersburg remained improbable
because of the established Russian ambition for the Straits as well as Russias recent,
imperial misadventures in Bulgaria (1885-1888, discussed in Chapter VI).
287

Consequently, with the British disinterest in remaining the Ottoman protector and the
distrust that the European Powers and the Porte had in France and Russia, an opportunity
developed for the newly established Germany to assert itself in the Ottoman Empire.

284
Ibid.

285
Soy, 304. Barbara Jelavich, Russian Acquisition of Batum, Slavonic and East
European Review 48(1970): 46 (hereafter cited as Jalavich, Russian Acquisition of
Batum,.

286
England and Turkey, Eastern Express (Constantinople), 16 August 1882, 339:a.

287
FRUS, 1870, 237-239.
127
While international conditions favored an extension of German imperialism into
the Ottoman Empire, Bismarcks commitment to the consolidation of the German state,
in the years following the unification of Germany (1871), is well known. This
Bismarckian interest in the consolidation of the recently unified Germany caused
Bismarck to profess little interest in foreign affairs, beyond keeping Germany out of war.
This determination to avoid involvement in a war catalyzed Bismarcks disinterest in
formal colonies, which he emphasized in the Reichstag by declaring Ich bin kein
Kolonialmensch (I am no colonizer).
288
However, following the British decision to
limit further financial involvement in the Ottoman Empire, the Germans (both
governmental and non-governmental officials) recognized that conditions existed for the
advancement of German interests in the Ottoman Empire through trade, commerce, and
a peaceful penetration.
289
The conflict between Bismarcks official stated intention to
avoid colonial fetters, and the general interest in extending German influence abroad
made the acceptance of the British model of imperialism for the Ottoman Empire
particularly attractive.
Bismarcks interest in avoiding colonization did not wholly differentiate him from
those who advocated for German expansion abroad. Friedrich Fabri, in his famous

288
The East African Question, Times (London), 28 January 1889, 5:c.

289
Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, The German Middle Eastern Policy, 1871-1945 in
Germany and the Middle East, 1871-1945, ed. William G. Schwanitz (Princeton: Markus
Wiener Publishers, 2004), 1. Regrettably, this volume dedicates very little space to
German interests in the Ottoman Empire before 1900. This is one of the best books on
the subject, particularly its footnotes.

128
volume Bedarf Deutchland Colonien?
290
(Does Germany Need Colonies?), advocated for
German economic expansion into regions where European colonialism already existed,
and, thus, political annexation was out of the question.
291
Consequently, one of the
most famous assertions for German expansion abroad (Fabri) promoted an imperial
policy that specifically prohibited colonial development. Further, Karl von Koseritz, an
influential German living in South America, and editor of the South American edition of
Deutsche Zeitung, advocated a similar position.
292
Indeed, the effort to secure imperial
influence without colonies accorded with the general pattern of imperial activity in the
Ottoman Empire. The two most important examples of such imperial activity were the
British occupation of Egypt (1882) and the creation of the new Bulgarian state (1878).
Although the British occupied Egypt in 1882, the latter remained within the Ottoman
Empire until the 1914 Turkish declaration of war against England. Similarly, following
the creation of Bulgaria, in the Treaty of San Stefano (1878), which the European Powers
considered an unacceptable extension of Russian influence into the Ottoman Empire, the
new Bulgaria remained, formally, within the Ottoman Empire. Consequently,
Bismarcks support for the advancement of German interests in the Near East without
formal colonization (while publicly proclaiming no interest in establishing colonies in the
Ottoman Empire) indicates that his vision for the extension of German influence abroad

290
Friedrich Fabri, Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien?/Does Germany Need Colonies?
trans., E.C.M. Breuning and M.E. Chamberlain (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press,
1998).

291
Ian L.D. Forbes, German Informal Imperialism in South America before 1914,
Economic History Review 3 (1978): 385. In other circumstances Fabri did seek formal
colonies for Germany.

292
Ibid., 386.

129
fit within the general context of European imperialism in the Ottoman Empire. Further,
this Bismarckian interest in expansion without colonies permitted him to embrace the
accepted and recognized British model of imperialism for the Ottoman Empire.
Historians refer to the policy of German involvement in the Ottoman Empire as
Orientpolitik, but they have not considered this as imperialism or colonialism.
293
Rather,
such historians have contended that Germany intensified their economical, cultural, and
military relations to the Middle East
294
without considering the imperial implications
of such intensified activity.
German involvement in the Ottoman Empire embraced the model established by
the British, but subordinated imperial involvement in the Near East to Great Power
politics in Europe. Bismarck even sought, in the early 1880s, to reestablish British
interests in the Near East,
295
believing that securing such involvement (recall that the
British interest in maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire ended between 1875
and 1878) would bolster the position of the Ottoman Empire in the international arena.
The British, however, had minimal interest in extending their position in the Levant (as
previously discussed), and instead signaled a new relationship with the Porte by

293
Friedrich Scherer, Adler und Halbmond: Bismarck und der Orient 1878-1890
(Munich: Ferdinand Schningh, 2001) (originally the authors dissertation); this is the
best and most complete treatment of Bismarck and the Ottoman Empire. A recent
scholar contends that Bismarcks Orientpolitik depended on the continued rivalry of the
Russians, British, and French and focused on keeping German interests within
Constantinople. However, the scope of the eventual German influence in the Empire
went well beyond Constantinople, with or without the assent of Bismarck. See:
Marchand, 92.

294
Schwantiz, 1.

295
Scherer, 150-151; Grosse Politik, VII, doc. no. 1416.

130
partitioning Egypt from the Ottoman Empire (1882, as previously noted, but Egypt
remained, formally within the Ottoman Empire until 1914). This British decision for
disengagement permitted the French to enjoy heightened influence in the Near East
through a near monopoly on loans to the Porte, but, by 1888, the Germans began to
challenge this monopoly as their banks began to loan money to the Ottoman government
with considerable governmental support (discussed below). However, the other
European Powers regulated German, like the British and the French, imperial activity in
the Ottoman Empire, and, thus, Bismarck and the Germans emphasized maintaining the
status quo (i.e. no formal colonial development) as the first element in their Middle
Eastern policy.
296
The importance of maintaining peace in the Ottoman Empire found
support among the Powers, whose ambassadors emphasized their willingness to use bold
action to prevent the peace from being compromised.
297
The formal establishment of
colonies or other intensified imperial activities (far outside of the established British
model) would have likely caused the other European powers to intervene in the Empire,
possibly sparking a European war. The Germans, under Bismarck, never intended for
Ottoman policy to supersede European policy and, consequently, they carefully followed
the established British model of imperialism.
298


296
Schwanitz, 1-2.

297
The Ambassadorial Reunion, The Eastern Express (Constantinople), 21 October
1885, 394: a. While this could be conventional diplomatic rhetoric, the sentiment of this
statement appears genuine as most of the Powers sought to prevent a war in the Ottoman
Empire.

298
The coverage of British activity in Egypt by the Deutsche Kolonialzeitung helps
support this idea. See: Emin Pascha und die deutschen Interessen, Deutsche
Kolonialzeitung 15 February 1887, 125:b.

131
German economic imperialism in the Ottoman Empire never achieved the same
success as British imperialism did. Rather, the Germans lagged behind the British in
most areas of imperialism included in the model considered here. However, while the
Germans trailed the British in both the amount of money loaned and the total quantity of
goods traded, the Germans built more railroad track, appropriated more Ottoman artifacts
(if Egyptian artifacts are not considered), and contributed significantly to the reformation
of the Ottoman military. Consequently, while the Germans became one of the two most
important imperial powers, together with the French, in the Ottoman Empire in the
eighteen-eighties, British influence did not disappear completely, and tensions between
the two powers remained until the conclusion of the First World War (as the fierce
fighting in the Middle East during the First World War indicates
299
).
The extension of German imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, based on the
British model, coincided with the accession of Abdlhamid II (1876-1909) to the position
of Sultan. Abdlhamids credentials did not necessarily make him an attractive future
Sultan; he was poorly educated and lacked knowledge of foreign countries (he had never
traveled and he spoke only Turkish). However, Abdlhamid II became intensely
interested in foreign affairs and approached them with a deep sense of the Ottoman
Empires vulnerability to the European Great Powers.
300
Further, he believed that all
Powers but Germany were hostile [to the Ottoman Empire], and that the British in

299
McKale, War by Revolution. McKale provides a detailed description of the many and
varied efforts that both the British and Germans engaged in during the First World War to
disrupt the activities of the other power. McKales book emphasizes the importance and
involvement of these two powers in the Middle East before the First World War.

300
Yasamee, 43.

132
particular were bent upon the Ottoman Empires destruction.
301
The new Sultan made
the reestablishment of Ottoman autonomy his principal goal, but he recognized that this
required further reforms, and likely necessitated that the Empire submit to the indignity
of temporary Great Power protection. Abdlhamid II considered Germany the best
possible candidate for a protective relationship with the Ottoman Empire.
302

Although Abdlhamid II sought closer relations with Germany, he rejected any
proposals for a formal protective (i.e. imperial) relationship.
303
Germany appealed to the
Sultan because it had no established ambitions in the Ottoman Empire (as the British,
French, and Russians did) and the inclusion of such a power might lead to a
reestablishment of the balance of power in the Near East,
304
which had been
compromised by the strong British position since 1838. Thus, while the Germans sought
to establish themselves in the Ottoman Empire, the Porte and the Sultan encouraged
informal German influence in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans believed the Germans
would provide protection from the other Great Powers and permit the Empire to continue
to institute domestic reforms, eventually becoming sufficiently strong to exist without

301
Ibid., 44.

302
Although held in Berlin, without an Ottoman delegation, the British disappointed the
Porte and Abdlhamid more than the Germans (discussed in Chapter V). See: Akarli, 34-
35.

303
Yasamee, 50-51. Abdlhamid is viewed in much western historiography as anti-
modernist or anti-western, but such a categorization is inaccurate. He did seek to limit
European intrusion and involvement in the Ottoman Empire, but he also recognized that
such a goal would require the further advancement of the Ottoman financial, military, and
educational systems. Thus, he could not isolate himself from Europe. He believed
Germany posed the least threat to the Ottoman Empire of any of the Great Powers and
thus fostered relations with the Germans. See: Akarli, 2-6.

304
Yasamee, 50-51.

133
Great Power protection. However, in spite of Abdlhamids intention to reestablish the
Ottoman Empire without Great Power imperial influence, German influence in the
Empire accelerated between 1876 and the Young Turk Revolution (1908). During this
period, in spite of the Sultans efforts, the Germans became increasingly involved in
Ottoman trade, became a major source of loans for the Porte, participated in the
development of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, further reformed the army
under German influence, and appropriated the Pergamon Altar and other Ottoman
artifacts. Thus, by the early twentieth-century, the Germans, almost to the extent of the
British between 1838 and 1875, imposed a strong imperial presence on the Ottoman
Empire.
German Commercial Imperialism in the Ottoman Empire
On 6 October 1875, the Ottoman government published the following notice in
local newspapers:
It is well known that the Budget shows a deficit exceeding 5,000,000.
In order to be able to pay regularly the coupons of the various loans, the
Government had hitherto been in the habit of obtaining fresh loans,
thus paying one debt by contracting another. The result of this
expedient was an increase of the deficit and a diminution on the
confidence of holder of Turkish securities, which is proved by the
constant depreciations which Ottoman stock daily undergo [sic.]
305


The announcement continued, explaining that the Ottoman government had suspended
payment on its foreign debts. While the announcement did not explicitly repudiate the
debts, it was tantamount to a formal declaration of bankruptcy.
306
This event (hereafter

305
Latest Intelligence, Times (London) 8 October 1875, 3:a.

306
Owen, 108. For a discussion of the Turkish economic situation, see: Issawi,
Economic History of Turkey, 361-365; and House, Indebtedness of Foreign Countries:
Letter from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, in Reply to A Resolution of the House of
134
the Ottoman Bankruptcy), which developed partially from the general economic
depression that began in 1873,
307
transformed the relationship between the Powers and
the Ottoman Empire. British investors became increasingly circumspect about future
investments (but less so trade
308
) in the Ottoman Empire and, consequently, an
opportunity developed for an assertion of further French and German economic influence
in the Empire.
The Powers resolved the Ottoman bankruptcy principally through the Decree of
Muharram (October 1881, also spelled Mouharrem) and the significantly less important
Treaty of Berlin (1878, less important concerning the debt settlement, discussed in
Chapter VI).
309
The Ottoman Debt Administration (also referred to as the Public Debt
Administration), which was included in the Decree of Maharram, became the instrument
through which the European powers protected their investments in the Ottoman Empire,
but it also became one of the principal tools of European economic imperialism in the
Ottoman Empire.
310
The Ottoman Debt Administration (ODA) did not replace the
Imperial Ottoman Bank, or even displace the latters significant influence (see Chapter
IV), but, rather, the ODA provided additional European oversight and control of Ottoman

Representatives, in Relation to the Public Indebtedness of Foreign Governments, 29
January 1881, 46
th
Cong., 3
rd
sess., 1881, Ex. Doc, 63, 34-40.

307
Pamuk, 60-61.

308
The promise of trade encouraged German colonial activity in the Ottoman Empire, the
basis for this was partially the success of the British trade efforts in Egypt, see:
Dampfersubvention fr Ostafrika, Deutsche Kolonialzeitung 1 October 1887, 557-581.

309
Clay, Gold for the Sultan, 546-559.

310
Blaisdell, 235.

135
finances.
311
While the Decree of Maharram,
312
which officially formed the ODA,
extended substantial privileges and opportunities to the Powers, the Porte announced the
Decree with a sense of relief, because the latter feared that the European Powers would
use the bankruptcy as a pretext for formal occupation, as occurred in Tunis (1881) and in
Egypt (1882).
313

The increased control provided by the Decree of Muharram was important
because, until the First World War, the ODA operated simultaneously as the major
conduit for Ottoman access to European finance markets (i.e. European loans)
314
and the
permanent guardian of the [financial] interests of foreign nationals in the Ottoman
Empire.
315
Without this guardianship, the European Powers (principally France and
Germany) would have been hesitant to extend new loans to the Porte after 1875.
Moreover, the ODA also represented (through the executive council, discussed below)
the interests of all the European Powers, which became increasingly important as the
Imperial Ottoman Bank, after 1875, became an instrument of French interests.
316
Before

311
Report, Beiberstein to Foreign Office, 31 July 1907, NARA/T-139/reel 352/Series I.

312
Issawi, The Economic History of Turkey, 363-365.

313
Owen, 191-192. For information on the French occupation of Tunis, see: DBFP: I: B:
VIII: 301-379.

314
Donald Quataert, Ottoman Reform and Agriculture in Anatolia, 1876-1908. Ph.D.
diss, University of California-Los Angeles, 51.

315
Blaisdell, 222.

316
A French publication from 1918 refers to the Imperial Ottoman Bank as a French bank.
See: Henri Hauser, Germanys Commercial Grip on the World: Her Business Methods
Explained trans. Manfred Emanuel (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1918), 62. The
Imperial Ottoman Bank secured loans to purchase weapons in France, loans that were not
136
a specific understanding of German economic influence in the Ottoman Empire can be
attempted, a basic understanding of the Ottoman Debt Administration and its relation to
the Ottoman state must be considered.
Although economic powers had established protective organizations in foreign
countries for decades, the Ottoman Debt Administration distinguished itself from similar
contemporary organizations. The ODA did not function conventionally because the
flexibility and the scope of its authority within the Ottoman Empire provided the ODA
with an unusually influential position. The following characteristics of the ODA
contributed to its unusually influential position: first, the ODA did not receive its
authority from an international treaty or commercial agreement; rather, it claimed its
authority from a decree issued by the Sultan, which provided a semi-legal status that
afforded the ODA a large degree of flexibility.
317
Second, the Ottoman state provided the
salaries for the ODA officials, which, by 1913, exceeded fifty-five hundred employees,
more than the entire Ottoman Ministry of Finance.
318
Third, the Ottoman government

available to the Ottoman government when the weapons were purchased in Germany,
see: Turkish Armaments, Times (London), 21 December 1904, 3:d.

317
Blaisdell, 7. While this assertion is correct in principle, the Powers and the Sultan
negotiated over the components of this agreement. See Clay, Gold for the Sultan, 544-
547. The semi-official status of the ODA did not impair its ability to act, as such status
might do, because the Ottoman Empire needed the ODAs support and recognized that
the Powers relied on the ODA, often by placing important but unofficial delegates on it,
such as officials from the Banking House of Bleichrder, whose connections to Bismarck
will be discussed below, see: Blaisdell, 114 and Owens, 192. Indeed, Fritz Stern
discusses Bleichrder and Bismarcks interest in the Ottoman Empire in a chapter entitled
The Reluctant Colonialist, in reference to Bismarck (discussed below), see: Fritz Stern,
Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichrder, and the Building of the German Empire (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), 418-419.

318
Owen, 194. Blaisdells book was characterized in 2001 as still the best source on the
ODA. New research based on material from the bank archives and political archives
137
received no share of the revenues collected by the ODA, even if the revenues increased
dramatically. Fourth, the Decree compelled the Ottoman government to enforce the
monopolies granted to the ODA (i.e. prevent smuggling or illegal sales of goods on
which the ODA had a monopoly, such as tobacco);
319
and, finally, the Ottoman
government paid all of the ODAs expenses.
320
These characteristics permitted the ODA
to control (directly) at least one-third of Ottoman revenues, represent both the individual
countries (chiefly: Britain, France, and Germany) and private bondholders, and advance
European imperial interests in the Empire. While scholars disagree about the potency of
the ODA, most agree that it represented a significant loss of sovereignty for the Ottoman
government and concede that it was a partner in [the European] imperialistic
enterprise.
321
Indeed, the ODA conformed with the desires of the Powers so fully that
the French, in their assertion of economic imperialism in China, sought an
international debt administrationsimilar to that in Turkey
322


from the major Powers as well as from Turkey would be a welcome addition to the
historiography. See: A. ner Turgay, The British-German Trade Rivalry in the Ottoman
Empire, 1880-1914: Discord in Imperialism, Cultural Horizons 5 (2001): 185-186ff.

319
Owen, 194. Also see: Tobacco Smuggling, The Eastern Express (Constantinople), 1
November 1882, 481; b, c; and Affray with Smugglers, The Eastern Express
(Constantinople), 1 November 1882, 484: a.

320
Blaisdell, 7 and, 108-109. The ODA acquired further responsibilities and powers, such
as the collection of taxes on imports (after 1903) for the Ottoman Ministry of Finance,
but it is not necessary to detail every new power that the ODA acquired. See: Owen, 193.

321
Owen, 192; and, Blaisdell, 10. This has not been a topic that scholars have considered
as fully as would be desirable, as mentioned in Chapter III; recent work by Christopher
Clay is the chief exception.

322
Dieter Brtel, French Economic Imperialism in China, 1885-1904/1906, Itinerario
23 (1999): 57.

138
Although the ODA had many responsibilities in the Ottoman Empire, its primary
purpose was the furtherance of European imperialism.
323
The ODA principally
asserted the imperialism of the Powers by facilitating loans and commercial agreements
for the Porte (with the Powers). The ODA accomplished this partially through its critical
oversight role, without which the European Powers would have been reluctant to make
additional loans to the Porte (after 1875, as previously mentioned). The Powers, at least
France and Germany, desired to provide loans and commercial agreements because they
recognized them as a justification for the assertion of Great Power imperialism in the
Empire,
324
but also because the Powers benefited from these loans. Many of the loans
made by the Powers were made for the construction of imperial railroads and other
European projects in the Ottoman Empire; frequently, the materials for the construction
of these projects had to be purchased from the country that provided the loan.
325

Overwhelmingly, the Powers structured the ODA to introduce European railroads into the
Ottoman Empire, and, consequently, a large proportion of the ODAs delegates also
represented companies involved in the development of railways.
326
The importance of

323
Blaisdell, 235.

324
An example of this comes from the French investment in China. The Powers fought to
provide concessions to the Chinese in the so called Battle of Concessions. The French
came to dominate investment in China and used it as a platform for the advancement of
their imperialist vision. While the British and Germans never equaled the French
investment in China, they both provided loans and became imperial powers (even
colonial powers). See, D. Gagnier, French Loans to China 1895-1914: The Alliance of
International Finance and Diplomacy, The Australian Journal of Politics and History 18
(1972): 229-249.

325
Owen, 192; British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914, vol. X, doc. 320,
287.

326
Quataert, Ottoman Reform and Agriculture, 54.
139
railway development to imperialism is not surprising and occurred throughout Germanys
imperial territories in Asia and Africa.
327
Indeed, the ODA delegates from Germany had
an especially close relationship with domestic railroad companies.
328

The ODA officially sought the support of the Sultan and the Porte in the
construction of railways and other large capital projects,
329
but it was also made
repeatedly clear that the Sultan and his government were expected to go along with
European plans and that they [the Ottomans] would only receive further financial support
if they did so.
330
Not only did the ODA secure funding and permission for European
imperial projects in the Ottoman Empire, but it also accepted responsibility for the
collection of taxes and the payment of the Ottoman debt.
331
In so doing, the ODA
controlled the salt monopoly, the stamp and spirit duties, the fish tax, and the silk tithe
from a number of districts, as well as the part of the Annual Tribute from several
provincesinitially, the ODA also collected the tobacco tax,
332
which, in total, as
previously mentioned, constituted approximately one-third of regular Ottoman

327
Bertram L. Simpson, The Re-Shaping of the Far East (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1905), 367-387.

328
Blaisdell, 147. Blaisdell attributes, almost wholly, German involvement in Ottoman
railroads to the ODA.

329
Turkey Under Abdul Hamid, New York Times, 14 October 1900, 16:6.

330
Owen, 192.

331
For a description of Ottoman revenue, see: DBFP B:I:VIII, 142-162; and DBFP
B:I:XVI, 348.

332
Owen, 193. These are described in Blaisdell, 108-119. Also see The Tobacco
Regie, The Eastern Express (Constantinople), 20 December 1882, 564: b-c.

140
revenues.
333
Based on this level of involvement, the European bondholders considered
the ODA quite successful. Not only did it advance future imperial projects, principally
the railroad which enjoyed enthusiastic construction after 1882,
334
but it also provided
regular debt payments, and powerful protective oversight for European interests in the
Empire.
335

The Decree of Muharrem, in Article XV, provided for an executive council to
oversee the ODA. The council consisted of seven members, one each to represent the
bondholders from the following countries: Netherlands, Britain, France, Germany,
Austria, and Italy; a delegate from the Imperial Ottoman Bank was the committees final
representative. While these members could not be diplomats assigned to the Ottoman
Empire, they received diplomatic status and protection,
336
although the existing
capitulations already provided extraterritoriality protection to foreigners in the Ottoman
Empire already. In spite of the official limitations on the requirements for membership
on the executive committee, the latters delegates often maintained a close, if quiet,
relationship with their respective government. Conventionally, most members of the

333
Owen, 193 (Table 36). The ODA sold the monopoly on tobacco to a consortium that
included the House of Bleichrder, increasing German influence in the Empire. Stern,
419. Also see: Trade and Finance: The Tobacco Regie, The Eastern Express
(Constantinople), 6 December 1882, 545: a.

334
Blaisdell, 125.

335
Owen, 193-194. The tobacco monopoly had a European heritage, see Moriz Mohl,
Denkschrift fr eine Reichs-Tabak-Regie (Stuttgart: K. Wittwer, 1878); Paris Urged to
Sell Monopoly, Christian Science Monitor, 19 November 1925, 3; Curtius, 2: 487.

336
Blaisdell, 94-95 and 99.

141
[executive] council were appointed with the active though usually covert, support of their
respective national governments.
337

Among the countries to delegate a representative with the covert support of his
national government was Germany. Thus, the delegates to the governing board of the
ODA often had a close relationship with their respective government, and thus provided
the European Powers a mechanism to exert imperial influence without establishing a
formal imperial relationship.
According to the Decree of Muharrem, the German delegate to the ODA was to
be selected from the syndicate of German banks, which constituted the principal Ottoman
creditors in Germany (until 1895 the only German bank in the syndicate was the House
of Bleichrder).
338
The syndicate selected Herr Justizrath Primker (formerly legal
counsel to the German Foreign Ministry) as the first German delegate to the ODAs
executive committee. Primker received the position based on the recommendation of
Gerson von Bleichrder,
339
whom historian Fritz Stern contends was the German
Rothschild, and the chancellors [Bismarcks] banker.
340
However, Stern properly
remarks that Bleichrder was more than simply Bismarcks banker; rather, Stern
contends he [Bleichrder] was given, and he sought, political assignments requiring

337
Owen, 192; for a list of the members, and how their characteristics changed, see
Blaisdell, 226-228.

338
Blaisdell, 95 and 228. This is not to indicate that the German selection process
differed (in the Decree) from any of the other powers. This is one of the strengths of
Blaisdells book; he based his discussion of the process for deciding who would represent
the Germans on interviews with officials from the German foreign ministry, Deutsche
Bank, etc.

339
Grunwald, 46-47.

340
Stern, xvi; and, Blaisdell, 114.

142
his particular mixture of [economic] expertise and discretion. Europe knew him as
Bismarcks secret agentBleichrders career illuminates those aspects of Bismarcks
rule previously slighted or ignored.
341
Bliechrders involvement in the Ottoman
Empire is revealing. Bismarcks frequent public assertions that he, and, thus, Germany,
had no interest in the Eastern Question, Turkish affairs, or the expansion of German
influence abroad must be seen within the context of Bleichrders participation in
Ottoman affairs. The assignment of Bleichrder as Bismarcks principal representative to
administer German affairs with the Turkish debt indicates that, while Bismarck did not
want to be publicly associated with the extension of German influence into the Ottoman
Empire, that this was an area of significance to him.
342

Importantly, Stern begins his discussion of Belichrders assignment to the ODA
with a brief discussion of imperialism, concluding somewhat non-committaly: If the
term imperialism is extended to mean financial control by one nation or a group of
nationals over the fiscal policy of another, then Bleichrder certainly participated in
imperial ventures [in the Ottoman Empire].
343
This assertion of German financial
control in the Ottoman Empire began earnestly in 1888, when Deutsche Bank became
actively involved in the construction of capital projects in the Ottoman Empire,

341
Stern, xvi; Bleichrder had established contacts in the Ottoman Empire when
Bismarck began to use him to help with the Turkish debt, see: Gershoma A. Knight, The
Rothschild-Bleichrder Axis in Action: An Anglo-German Cooperative, 1877-1878, Leo
Baeck Institute Jahrbuch 28 (1983): 43.

342
As early as 1876, Bismarck worried about the British influence in the Ottoman Empire,
see: DBFP I:B:III, 71. Also see, German Enterprise in the East, Times (London), 28
October 1898, 5:a.

343
Stern, 418.

143
principally, but not exclusively, railways and specifically, the Berlin-to-Baghdad
Railway; however, as early as 1883, the Germans, through Bleichrder, began to exert
their influence. The Decree of Muharrem provided the ODA the right to maintain and
collect revenues from the tobacco monopoly. The executive committee of the ODA sold
this right (as was their prerogative under the Decree) to a company known as the Tobacco
Regie, which consisted of the House of Bleichrder, Credit-Anstalt in Vienna, and the
Imperial Ottoman Bank.
344
The Tobacco Regie was the sole entity which could license
farmers to grow the product or provide loans to support its cultivation; however, it was
obligated to purchase all of the tobacco harvested.
345
Bleichrders early involvement in
Turkish finances and imperialism permitted him to assume the leading German role in
the international supervision of Turkish finances.
346

The assertion of German economic influence in the Ottoman Empire began in
1888, but it did so largely because of the British decision to provide fewer loans, but not
to decrease direct trade, to the Ottoman government based on the Ottoman Bankruptcy of
1875.
347
Deutsche Bank provided the first major German loan to the Ottoman Empire in
1888, the same year that Bismarck famously told the Reichstag that Turkey was not

344
Stern, 419; The Tobacco Regie, Eastern Express (Constantinople), 6 January 1886,
10:c.

345
Owen, 204-205; Report, Deutsche Bank to Auswrtiges Amt, 28 June 1913, NARA/T-
139/reel 354/series I/0123.

346
Stern, 421. A study of Bleichrders involvement in the Ottoman Empire and a history
of the Tobacco Regie would be welcome additions to the historiography.

347
Pamuk, 76. For example, the proposed Euphrates Valley Railway was never built, see:
Jelavich, Russian Acquisition of Batum, 55-56.

144
worth the bones of a healthy Prussian grenadier.
348
The Ottoman government contracted
this loan for thirty million Marks to pay an indemnity it owed to Russia from the most
recent Russo-Turkish War, a loan the Imperial Ottoman Bank refused to make. However,
the purpose of the loan, from the German perspective, was to facilitate the entrance of
Deutsche Bank into Ottoman financial circlesspecifically, the eventual construction of
the Berlin to Baghdad Railway, which developed from the Anatolian Railway.
349

According to historian Kurt Grunwald, This [loan] was the beginning of Germanys
paramount position in Turkeys economic and financial affairs. Deutsche Bank soon
rose to a position equal, if not superior, to that of the Imperial Ottoman Bank.
350

However, the ascendancy of Deutsche Bank occurred only because of the pressure from
the German government (chiefly the new Kaiser, Wilhelm II, 1888-1918) on the bank,

348
Kurt Grunwald, Penetration PacifiqueThe Financial Vehicles of Germanys Drang
nach dem Osten, Jahrbuch des Instituts fr Deutsche Geschichte 1975 (???), 87
(hereafter cited as Grunwald Penetration Pacifique,). The British dated the origins of
German economic imperialism in the Ottoman Empire specifically to 3 October 1888,
see: DBFP, B:I:XVI, 65.

349
Walter Herman Carl Laves, German Governmental Influence on Foreign Investments,
1871-1914 (New York: Arno Press, 1977), 102. This is a publication of his 1927
dissertation written at the University of Chicago. A study of Georg von Siemans
activities in the Ottoman Empire would be highly desirable. Von Siemans activities in
North America are well known, but less so his involvement in the Ottoman Empire. Also
see: W.O. Henderson, German Economic Penetration in the Middle East, Economic
History Review 17(1948): 58-60.

350
Grunwald, 87. Deutsche Bank eventually developed subsidiary companies including
Haidar Pasha Port Company, the Anatolian Railway Company, Actiengesellschft der
Orientalischen Eisenbahn (Oriental Railway Company), Imperial Ottoman Baghdad
Railway Company, and many others. See: Blasidell, 220; Senate The German Great
Banks, 432-440; The Deutsche Bank: The Banks Constantinople Interests, Times
(London) 28 March 1913, 18:c; and, Railways in Asia Minor, Times (London) 19 May
1923, 10:d.

145
hoping to compel the bank to become involved in the Ottoman Empire (based partially on
the Sultans interest in increasing German investment in his Empire).
351

The involvement of Deutsche Bank in the Ottoman Empire appealed to the Sultan
partially because, by 1888, British loans had slowed considerably, and, consequently, his
only avenue for access to European financial markets came through the Paris branch of
the Imperial Ottoman Bank. While the Imperial Ottoman Bank officially maintained
headquarters in both London and Paris, its authority had become concentrated in the
latter. Thus, the refusal of the Imperial Ottoman Bank to extend loans to the Porte (in
specific cases, such as the first loan that Deutsche Bank provided) was directed
principally from Paris, with considerable assistance from the Quai dOrsay.
352
This
concentration of authority in the Paris branch of the Imperial Ottoman Bank permitted the
French a brief period (1875-1888) of unchallenged economic supremacy in the Ottoman
Empire. Consequently, it is not surprising that the Sultan welcomed, even invited,
353
the
assertion of German financial interests (via the Deutsche Bank) into the Ottoman Empire,
and the competition it provided, both economic and political, and that such involvement
did not receive the Imperial Ottoman Banks approbation.
354
Complaints from the latter
appeared in the Times (London) claiming (with mild exaggeration) that the Sultans

351
Grosse Politik, XIV, docs. 3958, 3959, and 3960; Laves, 99-100.

352
Blaisdell, 221; Hamilton, 48; Pamuk, 76-77.

353
Grosse Politik, XIV, doc. 3959.

354
This disapproval existed as early as 1882. A meeting between Baron Hirsch and a
representative of Austrian banks to build the Oriental Railway caused the French press to
influence of other European Powers, see: The Oriental Railways, Eastern Express
(Constantinople) 31 May 1882, 203.

146
finance minister planned the loan [the 1888 loan with Deutsche Bank] without them [the
officers of the Imperial Ottoman Bank.].
355
While the Imperial Ottoman Bank
(essentially directed by the French) did not encourage German investment, the ODA
proved more compliant and, in some cases, assisted the Germans.
356
The rise in German
economic influence in the Ottoman Empire developed not only from British hesitance to
facilitate loans to the Porte, but also because the Sultan recognized the political-
territorial ambitions of the British (and French) and, consequently, preferred to contact
loans with the Germans whose position in the Near East was weaker than that of the other
Powers.
357
The confluence of these factors permitted the Germans to become a major
factor in Ottoman financial affairs. Deutsche Bank became the principal instrument of
German economic imperialism; however, a series of other German banks and companies
(some of whom were subsidiaries of Deutsche Bank) also inserted themselves into the
Ottoman financial markets, including but not limited to: Die Deutsche Palstina-Bank,
the Ottoman Railway Company, Diskonto-Gesellschaft, Dresdner Bank, Darmstdter
Bank, Wrttembergische Vereinsbank, and, of course, the House of Bleichrder.

355
The Conclusion of a Fresh Loan a Fortnight Ago, Times (London) 24 October 1888,
9:c. Apparently, by 1899 the Imperial Ottoman Bank had accepted the involvement of
Deutsche Bank, and the other German banks, in Turkish affairs. Instead of fighting it, the
Imperial Ottoman Bank began to involve themselves in the Baghdad Railway and other
German endeavors, see: Blaisdell, 220.

356
Blaisdell, 7, 135, 198, and 222; Blaisdell states the ODA discharged its duties to the
Deutsche Bank with the same good faith and efficiency as it did those to the Imperial
Ottoman Bank. Blaisdell, 235. During the First World War, the ODA became a tool for
the exclusive use of the Germans and Austrians.

357
Grunwald, 90; and Grosse Politik, XIV, docs. 3959 and 3960.

147
The German investment in the Ottoman Empire was part of a broader, and
somewhat controversial, German economic policy entitled Export Capitalism.
358
This
economic philosophy facilitated the aggressive loaning of money from Germany to
foreign countries, but in supplying loans to these foreign governments, the German banks
were encouraged to apply pressure that would direct the foreign government to use the
borrowed funds in Germany.
359
Such a policy fit with the German (indeed European)
concern about berproduktion, as it provided a market for excess German goods. In the
Ottoman Empire, this translated, overwhelmingly, into the construction of railways.
360

This railroad construction brought in its wake schools, factories, hospitals, and harbor
works, all the recognized paraphernalia of imperialist expansion,
361
which facilitated
further loans from German banks. Thus, Export Capitalism became a powerful tool of

358
Export Capitalism was defined as the investment of German capital in foreign
enterprises, businesses, and securities, particularly the founding of subsidiary companies
destined exclusively for over-sea business See: Senate, National Monetary
Commission: The German Great Banks and Their Concentration in Connection with The
Economic Development of Germany, 61
st
Cong., 2
nd
sess., 1910, Doc. 593, 420 (hereafter
cited as Senate, The Great German Banks); also see, Jacob Riesser, Die deutschen
Grossbanken und ihre Konzentration (Jena: G. Fischer, 1905), which provided much of
the material for this congressional report.

359
Senate, The Great German Banks, 386; Laves, 9; and, Henderson, 59. Henderson
indicates that the Frankfurt a/M company Holzman and Company built many of the
railways in the Ottoman Empire. Research on the firm would be a welcome addition to
our understanding of German economic activity in the Empire.

360
Unsere berproduktion an geistiger Arbeitskraft und praktische kolonisation,
Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, 16 June 1888, 185:a.

361
Blaisdell, 209. The author is discussing the Baghdad Railway, but this would be true
of most German railroads in the Ottoman Empire during this period. However, records
relating to the construction of factories and even more so hospitals are limited. The
factories that were constructed were usually quite small and remained few in number.
See: Quataert, 898.

148
German economic expansion within the Ottoman Empire. Based on this economic
philosophy, the Germans increased their ability to assert themselves in the affairs of the
Ottoman Empire.
Such expansion fit within the tangled foreign policy that followed the departure of
Bismarck and the arrival of Weltpolitik in 1897-1898.
362
During this transition period
from Bismarckian foreign policy to Weltpolitik, German foreign policy lacked a guiding
ideological principle, as the failure to renew the Reinsurance Treaty clearly exhibited.
While the period from 1888-1899 was the most potent period in nineteenth-century
German colonial expansion, the Germans, under Reichskanzler Georg Leo Count von
Caprivi (1888-1892), also emphasized acquiring small strategic locations over larger
colonial claims (the Heligoland-Zanzibar Agreement of 1 July 1890 is an example).
363

German influence in the Ottoman Empire addressed strategic interests, such as providing
a presence in the Suez Canal, while also conforming to the developing framework of
Weltpolitik that the Kaiser, his court, the navy, and industrialists advocated.
364

The use of Export Capitalism and the subsequent construction of railroads and the
associated schools, factories, banks, etc. enabled Germany (in the form of private banks,

362
Rhl, 343; Imanuel Geiss, German Foreign Policy, 1871-1914 (Boston: Routledge,
1976), 60.

363
Geiss, 61. The Germans also hoped this would facilitate relations between England
and Germany (following the decision not to resign the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia),
which it did not.

364
Der Schu der berseeischen deutschen Interessen durch die Kriegsmarine,
Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, 18 August 1888, 257-258. The article indicates that the
Mediterranean station was responsible for the Black Sea, and thus the stations were more
than mere coaling stations, but were strategic as well. The other locations proposed were:
East Asia, Australia, Eastern America (North, Central, and South America on the eastern
side), Western America, and East and West Africa.

149
with governmental support and pressure) to become (rapidly) one of the Ottoman
Empires primary creditors. As late as 1888, the British maintained 56.2% of the
Ottoman debt, with France controlling 31.7% and Germany merely 1.1%. However, by
1913, the British controlled only 15.2 % of the Ottoman debt and the Germans controlled
27.5%, with the French controlling the largest share at 50.4%.
365
The specific terms of
the loans
366
are less important than the rapid increase in German influence in the
commercial markets of the Ottoman Empire. The importance of German loans,
proportionally and politically, encouraged the Germans to ask for (unsuccessfully, in
1913) an additional seat on the executive council of the ODA and for a German to enter
the rotation for president of the council (which alternated between a British and a French
delegate).
367
The ODA refused the German request; however, this refusal was likely
more related to contemporary political environment than to a failure to recognize German
influence in the Ottoman Empire. The German interest in additional seats on the ODA
executive council and inclusion in the revolving presidency emphasizes the importance of
the ODA to German, and indeed European, interests in the Ottoman Empire.
German investment in the Ottoman Empire grew from 166,000 in 1888 to
20,653,000 in 1913. This investment included the construction of railways, ports, and

365
Pamuk, 65 and 66; Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 774. Also see, DBFP,
B:I:XVI, 65-73. This document provides a good comparison between French and
German loans to the Porte. Also see Harry D. White, The French International Accounts,
1880-1913 Harvard Economic Studies, vol. 40 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1933).

366
See: DBFP, B:I:XIV, 70-73 (table B) for a specific list of important German loans to
the Ottoman Empire.

367
Turgay, 185ff.

150
utilities, as well as investments in banking, commerce, industry, and mining.
368
Of these,
German influence in railway and port construction (at 37% and 18.1% of the total foreign
investment in each respective category) and banking (at 19.7% of the total foreign
investment in Ottoman banks) were the greatest, with the others between six and eight
percent of the total investment.
369
The German investment in railways (as previously
mentioned) was not surprising because of the importance railways had in the domestic
development of Germany, but also because Germany had built railways in many of the
worlds peripheral areas, including Latin America, China, and the Near East.
370
German
railways in the Ottoman Empire, specifically the Oriental, Baghdad, and Anatolian
Railways, served a dual purpose; they exerted German imperial influence and they
brought profits to the German companies who built them.
The companies that constructed German railways in the Ottoman Empire were
ensured a profit because Ottoman government secured profits through kilometric
guarantees (a guaranteed payment per kilometer).
371
The first provision for a kilometric
guarantee, which became one of the principal methods for financing railways,
372
was

368
Pamuk, 64 and 66.

369
Ibid., 66.

370
Herbert Feis. Europe the Worlds Banker: An Account of European Foreigvestment
and the Connection of World Finance with Diplomacy before the War (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1930), 97; and, Simpson, 368-386.

371
Report, Ambassador to Reichskanzler Bernhard von Blow, 31 July 1909, NARA/T-
139 /reel 352/series I; Report, Beiberstein to Foreign Office, 31 July 1907, NARA/T-
139/reel 352/series I; and Owen, 214. This became one of the principal methods for
constructing railways, see: Barth, 118.

372
Hurewitz, 503 for an example from a 1903 convention.

151
developed for the German construction of the Anatolian Railway. This financial
instrument developed because the Sultan preferred for the railway to bypass
commercially important areas in favor of military and strategic areas.
373
Indeed, the 1903
Baghdad Railway Concession Agreement, in Article 45, required the concessionaries
[principally the Germans] to construct at their own expensesuch military stations as
may be deemed necessary by the Ministry of War.
374
Ottoman promises for payment
(after 1875) would not have been sufficient, so the Ottoman government permitted the
ODA to collect specific taxes and tithes to support the guarantees made to the German
government and Deutsche Bank.
375
In addition to the authority granted to the ODA for
the collection of taxes and the enforcement of monopolies, the Germans exerted further
political influence along the railways that they constructed in the Ottoman Empire. One
example of this enhanced authority was the inclusion of police powers (within the scope
of Ottoman law) for the companies, which constructed the railway along the tracks that
they built.
376
As previously stated, the concessions that granted permission for the
construction of these railways also provided limited ownership rights as far as twenty
kilometers on either side of the track.
377
Further, the Germans began to establish

373
Quataert, Ottoman Reform and Agriculture, 52.

374
Hurewitz, 506.

375
Quataert, Ottoman Reform and Agriculture in Anatolia, 53; Auswrtiges Amt, report
(copy), 20 June 1913, NARA/T-139/reel 354/series I/0106. This document shows how
with each additional concession the Ottoman government made for the construction of
the railway they granted increasing authority to collect taxes through the ODA. The
Porte did this as a deposit on the kilometric guarantees that the concessions carried with
them.

376
Hurewitz, 500.

377
Ibid., 498 and 500.
152
consulates along their Ottoman railways. These consulates directed business toward
Germany, but also offered a political presence in many Ottoman cities and territories.
378

Finally, the development of railways, especially railways associated with specific
European countries, such as the Berlin to Baghdad Railway, contributed to the sense that
the Ottoman Empire was being partitioned into spheres of influence, or even imperial
territories, especially as the German foreign office increasingly directed (in the twentieth-
century) the affairs of the Baghdad Railway.
379
Some scholars assert that the extension
of German imperialism into the Ottoman territories occurred without undue tension
between the Germans and the Ottomans; one scholar even contends that the Germans
living in the Ottoman Empire, alongside the Ottoman railway workers, provided
[positive] experiments in intercultural living as Germans and Turks shared
accommodations.
380
However, such assertions obscure the imperial significance of the
German involvement in the Ottoman Empire.
German involvement in the construction of Ottoman railroads began with the
Anatolian Railway. As previously mentioned, this railway had its origins with the
Austrian Baron Wilhelm von Pressel; however, the Germans received the concession for

378
Turgay, 182. Scholars are only beginning to devote attention to Ottoman provincial
history, but it is expected that a greater knowledge of this history will result in an
increased recognition of a German imperial presence in the Ottoman interior.

379
British Documents on the Origins of the War, X, 901-902; Early Partition of Asia
Minor Now Seen, Christian Science Monitor, 11 October 1913; Turgay, 181-183; and,
Barth, 126-128.

380
McMurray, 1.

153
its construction (and it developed into the Berlin to Baghdad Railway).
381
Bismarck
maintained an official policy of neutrality regarding the Anatolian Railway; however,
eventually, both Wilhelm II and his ambassador to Constantinople Baron Adolf
Marschall von Bieberstein (who had been the German Foreign Secretary from 1890-
1897,
382
following the removal of Herbert von Bismarck) sought to advance German
interests in the Ottoman Empire through railway construction.
383
The Kaiser and his
advisors pressed Deutsche Banks reluctant leaders, especially Georg von Siemens, to
finance, albeit with international support, the Anatolian and Baghdad Railways.
384

However, as Bismarckain foreign policy faded, and Germany embraced the more
militaristic Weltpolitik, the Baghdad Railway lost its international support and became an
increasingly imperial project driven by the German government.
385

The construction of the Anatolian railway conformed to the ambitions and desires
of the German government because Anatolia (and other areas in Turkey) was seen as a

381
Ibid., 13-28; the history of the Baghdad Railway is so well known that it does not seem
necessary to repeat it here, except for specific points that are germane for this argument.
British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914, V, 175.

382
John C.G. Rhl, Wilhelm II: The Kaisers Personal Monarchy, 1888-1900 trans. Sheila
de Bellaigue (London: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 326-329.

383
Lothar Gall et al., The Deutsche Bank, 1870-1995 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson,
1995), 71.

384
Ibid., 76. The right to build the railway was not granted all at once, and the Powers
competed with each other for the right to build each concession. However, this became an
increasingly German project, but it almost always had some French (in the form of the
Imperial Ottoman Bank) and sometimes British investors. For a listing of how much
each invested, by 1908, see: Barth, 130.

385
Laves, 102-104.

154
seen as a territory from which large amounts of grain could be exported.
386
Indeed, the
British magazine The Economist lamented:
[drawing] attention to the construction of railways in Asia Minor as a
matter of much importanceAsia Minor is a country of vast extent,
having an area of 729,000 square milesQuite one-third of this
enormous areais by nature splendidly fertile, whilst the prevailing
climate is magnificent; but the means of communication are so
defective that crops cannot be brought to the sea, and a great reservoir
of cereals is thus left untapped. It would surely be worth while for
English capitalists to turn their attention to the construction of light
railway from the interior of Asia Minor to various convenient points
along the coast.
387


Grain exports interested the Kaisers government because Germanys industrialization, in
the eighteen-eighties, resulted in an important change in German grain production;
Germany shifted from being a net exporter of grain to a net importer.
388
Although
Anatolia produced large amounts of grain, the inability to move this product from the
province to the world market meant that its grains essentially served a local market. The
construction of the Anatolian Railway changed this immediately,
389
and Anatolian grain
began to be exported in significant quantities. However, in spite of the introduction of
railways, Anatolia (and almost all of the Ottoman Empire) remained largely an area of
small farmers. Consequently, the Anatolian Railway Company and the Ottoman

386
Industrial Resuscitation in Turkey, Eastern Express (Constantinople), 20 December
1882, 563:a.

387
Turkey as a Source of Cereal Supply, The Economist, 15 November 1890, 8.

388
Pamuk, 105; and, Quataert, Ottoman Reform and Agriculture, 186.

389
Quataert, Ottoman Reform and Agriculture, 189.

155
government began to introduce methods of scientific agriculture;
390
these, however, had a
limited effect on the general nature of Anatolian grain farming.
391

The first concession for the Anatolian railway went from Haidar to Angora (577
km), and it proved the least controversial of all three of its eventual concessions.
392
The
second, and highly controversial, concession (official on 15 February 1893) ran from
Eskishehr to Konia.
393
This concession for the Anatolian Railway (which soon became
the Baghdad Railway) terminated in Konia, which was already served by two British
railways originating from Smyrna.
394
The second concession for the Anatolian Railway

390
Ibid., 190-195; A Present of Agricultural Implements to the Sultan, Eastern Express
(Constantinople), 20 September 1882, 405:b. The agricultural machines necessary for
this came from Sweden, which also sold weapons to the Ottomans.

391
The Germans also invested in Russian railroads and purchased large amounts of grain
from Russia (as the German tariff debates of the 1880s indicate), but these are
insufficient to claim German imperialism Russia. Rather, German imperialism in the
Ottoman Empire is predicated on not simply economic imperialism, but also political and
cultural imperialism, which did not occur in Russia. See: Dietrich Geyer, Russian
Imperialism: The Integration of Domestic and Foreign Policy, 1860-1914 trans. Bruce
Little (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 151; Gordon Craig, Germany, 1866-
1945, Oxford History of Modern Europe, ed. Lord Bullock and Sir William Deakin, vol.
5 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 113-114.

392
Although the duration of the concessions varied slightly, they were around ninety
years, see: Hurewitz, 497. It is misleading to associate controversy with these railway
lines merely to their construction. The German King of Bulgaria, Frederick (1887-1918)
had important problems with the Baghdad Railway but he could not do anything about it,
in spite of the fact that the Oriental Railway Company (whose chief investor was
Deutsche Bank) was a private company. See: R.J. Crampton, A Concise History of
Bulgaria (London: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 119-121.

393
John B. Wolf, The Diplomatic History of the Baghdad Railway (Columbia, Missouri:
University of Missouri Press, 1936), 16. For a listing of the specific concessions that
created the Anatolian Railway, see: Auswrtiges Amt report (copy), 20 June 1913,
NARA/T-139/reel 354/series I/0106.

394
Ibid., 16-17.

156
threatened the influence and the importance of two existing British railways, and
following the Sultans announcement that the Germans would receive the concession, the
British threatened a naval demonstration off the coast of Constantinople.
395
Although the
demonstration never took place, the British objection to the perceived German intrusion
into territory previously dominated by the British illustrates the importance that the
Powers placed on their territory in the Ottoman Empire (the British believed that the
Germans could have sent the railway through Sivas or Caesarieh and achieved the same
end without injuring British interests in the area
396
). The British had reason to worry
about being displaced by the Germans, as it became one of the principal German goals to
irrigate the Konia Plain from Lake Karaviran to increase agricultural production along the
German railways. The Sultan initially resisted this plan, but eventually acquiesced, and,
by the end of 1911, the German company formed for the project (Gesellschaft fr die
Bewsserung der Konia-Ebene) had made considerable progress.
397

Although the Germans acquired the second concession, Siemens and his Deutsche
Bank officials expressed further concerns about the exposure that such a project had for
them and even sought to decline the investment. However, Siemens concerns mattered
less by the eighteen-nineties, as Wilhelm II and his ambassador to Constantinople, Baron
von Bieberstein, increasingly equated economic influence with political power.

395
Grosse Politik, XIV, 3970.

396
B. Barth. The Financial History of the Anatolian and Baghdad Railways, 1889-
1914. Financial History Review 5 (1998): 119.

397
R.I. Money, The Irrigation of the Konia Plain, The Geographical Journal 54 (1919):
298; and, The Emperor Williams Visit, Times (London), 15 November 1907, 7:b. A
study of this company and this plan might show an interesting cold war between the
British and the Germans regarding who had what territory in the Ottoman Empire.

157
Consequently, when Siemens and Deutsche Bank sought to avoid further investment in
the Empire, the Kaiser and his foreign office applied increased pressure, eventually
convincing Siemens to fund the project. Siemens gained external financial support and
backing through the development of the Anatolian Railway Company (composed of
investors from Deutsche Bank, Wrtrrembergische Vereinsbank, and the Deutsche
Vereinsbank), which was incorporated under Ottoman law and thus formally an Ottoman
company; however its profits were sent to Switzerland to the Bank fr orientalische
Eisenbahnen.
398
Siemens and Deutsche Bank also sought international investors, and the
French (through the Imperial Ottoman Bank) contributed to the early construction of the
Anatolian (Baghdad) Railway. An agreement between the Germans and the French for
the consolidation of the Ottoman debt under the ODA enabled the financing of the
Baghdad Railway.
399
In spite of Siemans concerns, the banks profited from the project,
as did other German companies and investors (including Philipp Holzmanns company,
which built so many of the German railways in the Ottoman Empire, and Krupp &
Company who provided the rails).
400


398
Gall et al., 69-70; Barth, 120. German companies considered railway investment in the
Ottoman Empire as early as 1882, but decided against it, see: Railways in Turkey,
Eastern Express, 24 May 1882, 195.

399
Barth, 136; and letter, unknown to Foreign Ministry, 10 February 1902, NARA,/T-
139/0267-0275.

400
Gall et al., 70; Barth, 119, Barth indicates that Holzmann AG contracted to build the
line to Konia for 50.8 million French francs, but completed the contract using only
31.473 million francs (including the purchase of seventeen million francs worth of
German equipment), the remainder was profit for the company, and the investors. Also
see: Hans Meyer-Heinrich, Phillip Holzmann Aktiengeseschaft, 1849-1949 (Frankfurt
a/M: Umschau Verlag, 1949): 249-264.
158
A modification of the Ottoman Land Code of 1866, which, in its amended form,
permitted foreigners to own land in the Ottoman Empire, contributed to a series of
international efforts to establish agricultural colonies (largely unsuccessful) in the
territories that bordered the railway (sometimes purely Ottoman territory and other times
under the direction of European powers or companies). The purpose of these agricultural
colonies was to concentrate the territorial agricultural production on a single commercial
crop that could be exported,
401
as opposed to the conventional practice in which small
farmers produced small amounts of varied foodstuffs, which produced no predictable
product or yield. Although most of these efforts (and there were not that many) were
British, evidently the Germans also attempted to establish such colonies.
402
Evidence
indicates that all such efforts failed, both by Germans and by the other Powers.
Historians have argued that the failure of the Powers to establish such colonies (because
the Powers could not acquire sufficient labor, because the local labor could not be
coerced into working for the Powers) is a distinguishing feature that keeps the activities
of the Powers in the Ottoman Empire from constituting colonialism.
403


401
The establishment of large agricultural colonies appealed to those invested in the
Ottoman Empire because the Ottoman Empire (for various reasons, including its diversity
and size) exported a huge variety of agricultural products, with no agricultural product
(excepting animal products) constituting more than twelve percent of total Ottoman
exports. Consequently, if the Ottoman Empire could be transformed into a huge grain
producing area under the control or influence of a specific European power then that
Power would have an important economic and strategic advantage, see: Pamuk, 85. Also
see, FRUS, 1892, doc. 284, for problems with this new policy.

402
Pamuk, 102 and 243ff; also see: Germany in Asia Minor, Chicago Daily Tribune, 23
March 1900, 3:4.

403
Pamuk, 102. This is clearly a position that this dissertation disagrees with.
159
The construction of the Anatolian Railway not only permitted the European
Powers to assert their imperial ambitions for the Ottoman Empire, but it also altered trade
patterns within the Empire, as well as between the Empire and the world. Although little
is known about commerce within the Ottoman Empire, it is clear that the Anatolian
Railway became one of the principal instruments used to deliver grain from the provinces
to Constantinople and to the Ottoman Army. While nineteenth-century Ottoman statistics
are suspect, it appears that approximately twenty-five percent of the grain shipped on the
Anatolian Railway was consumed in Constantinople, providing approximately two-thirds
of the annual gain needs for the capital city, and that another ten percent went to the
Ottoman military.
404
Apparently, the Germans recognized the value of the domestic
Ottoman market, and they began to challenge the British and French for control over the
latter; in some cases (such as Damascus) the value of German trade exceeded that of the
other Powers.
405

While the Germans extended their commercial influence into the interior of the
Ottoman Empire, they also traded in bulk with Ottoman merchants and government
officials in the Empires principal ports. While Ottoman statistics are unreliable,
confidence may be extended to parallel statistics collected by the German government (at
least for a general consideration of German trade with the Ottoman Empire).
406
Based on

404
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 836.

405
Turgay, 175. Also see: John Bowring, Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria
(New York: Arno Publishers, 1973).

406
Most of the statistics included here have come from Kaiserlichen Statistischen Amt,
Statistisches Jahrbuch fr das Deutsche Reich (Berlin: Puttkammer & Mhlbrecht
Verlag) (hereafter cited as Statistisches Jahrbuch, year, page), which was published
annually. The statistics included in this dissertation largely come from this source
160
the latter, it clear that between 1880 and 1914 German trade with the Ottoman Empire
increased, both in value and in comparison to the other Powers. This trend accelerated in
the twentieth-century,
407
with the number of German ships visiting Constantinople
increasing from thirty five in 1881 to four hundred fifty-nine in 1913,
408
and the ratio of
the value of goods imported from Germany to the value of goods imported from Britain
fell from 1: 3.41 in 1901 to 1: 1.688 in 1910. More dramatically, the ratio of the value of
German goods exported to the Ottoman Empire to the value of British goods exported to
the Ottoman Empire improved from 1: 4.06 in 1901 to 1: 1.49 in 1910.
409
It is important
to note that this trade never became statistically important in Germany, and that the
Germans never had the capacity to challenge the British in the Ottoman Empire (i.e. the
British always traded more with the Ottomans than the Germans did).
410
However, while
British exports to the Ottoman Empire always exceeded those of the Germans, the
Germans exported a much wider variety of goods and materials, many of which were
manufactured goods as well as refined materials such as steel for railways.
Consequently, while the Germans never traded as much (in value or real numbers) with

whether the Statistisches Jahrbuch is cited directly or whether a secondary source is cited
(the secondary literature uses this source overwhelmingly).

407
Owen, 214.

408
Turgay, 181ff.

409
Ibid., 176; Statistisches Jahrbuch, 1906, 98-187; Statistisches Jahrbuch, 1897, 100-
118.

410
While scholars have devoted themselves to considerations of the development of the
German navy, little attention has been devoted to the German merchant marine under the
Kaiserreich. The Germans recognized the importance of trading vessels and developed
plans, in the nineteenth-century, to disrupt trade with England in the case of a war. See:
David Harold Olivier, Staatskaperei: The German Navy and Commerce Warfare, 1856-
1888 (Ph.D. diss., University of Saskatchewan, 2001). Also see: British and German
Trade, Times (London), 6 October 1891, 3:c.
161
the Ottoman Empire as the British did, the Ottomans came to rely on the Germans for a
greater variety of goods.
411

One of the products that the British and the Germans (as well as the French and
the Americans) traded with the Ottoman government was weapons. While the British
provided the Ottomans with the ships that became the Ottoman Navy, without much
competition,
412
the sale of guns and artillery provided more potent competition.
Eventually, as German economic imperialism exerted itself, the Ottomans increasingly
relied on Krupp to supply weapons; as this occurred, the Times (London) wrote:
The British Embassy has made serious representations to the Porte
concerning the treatment accorded to English firms which competed for
the supply of guns. These firms were asked to send tenders, but as
soon as they had tendered and before their offers had been examined
they were informed that the military authorities had decided to stick to
the old firm [Krupp] and buy from Krupp all the guns and ammunition
required.
413


The purchase of weapons became a major commercial undertaking for the Ottoman
Empire and, after the First World War, the Italians (seeking to exert themselves in
Turkish affairs) sought to sell weapons to the newly established Turkey, because they

411
Turgay, 174; Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 832; and, The German Man
of Business, Eastern Express (Constantinople), 7 October 1885, 371:b-c.

412
The Krupp Company purchased the German shipmaker Germania, and supplied
torpedoes to the Ottoman government. See: German Enterprise in the East, Times
(London), 28 October 1898, 5:a. However, by the first decade of the twentieth-century,
German sales of ships to the Ottoman government had increased, see: Turkey seeks
German Ships, Christian Science Monitor, 4 August 1910; and Turkey, Times
(London) 13 August 1900, 4:c. The British also supplied weapons, see:
Dampfersubvention fr Ostafrika, Deutsche Kolonialzeitung 1 October 1887, 580; the
Swedish also sent naval weapons to the Ottomans, see: Torpedoes, Eastern Express
(Constantinople), 27 September 1882, 411:b.

413
Turkish Armaments: The Treatment of British Firms, Times (London), 14 April
1905, 5:e.

162
concluded that the supply of arms was a tested great power method of gaining economic,
political, and military influence in Turkey.
414
The Italians came to such a conclusion
quite reasonably, as the British, French, and Germans competed with each other to sell
weapons to the Ottoman government and used this as a platform to advance their imperial
ambitions in the Empire.
415

The difficulty experienced by the British arms manufacturers in their efforts to
sell to the Ottomans likely derived out of the reticence that the British banking houses
had developed about loaning money to the Ottoman government. The purchase of
weapons from Krupp usually occurred through a loan provided by Deutsche Bank or
some other German bank (and this fit within the idea of Export Capitalism). For
example, a loan between Deutsche Bank and the Ottoman government in 1905 provided
approximately 2,400,000, of which the Porte received 350,000, the Anatolian Railway
received 500,000, and Krupp received the remainder for the purchase of new
weapons.
416
Further, when the Porte considered French weapons, it contracted a loan
through the French-dominated Imperial Ottoman Bank.
417
Thus, as the British banks
loaned less to the Ottoman government, the opportunity for British arms sales decreased

414
Dilek Barlas and Serhat Gven, To Build a Navy with the Help of Adversary:
Italian-Turkish Naval Arms Trade, 1929-1932, Middle Eastern Review 38(2002): 150;
also see, Letter, Assistant Secretary Leland Harrison to Department of State, 16 February
1926, NARA, R.G. 59, 883.34/1.

415
See: Werner Zuerrer, Geschft und Diplomatie: Der Fall Griechenland, 1905-1908,
Sdostforschungen 33 (1974).

416
Turkish Armaments, Times (London), 24 April 1905, 3:e. The Ottomans also
purchased weapons and ammunition through the Mauser company.

417
Turkish Armaments, Times (London), 21 December 1904, 3:d.

163
proportionally. The sale of weapons not only facilitated economic imperialism by
extending new loans to the Ottoman government, but it also coincided with an established
nineteenth-century German effort to modernize the Ottoman military, which the Italians,
after the First World War characterized as [a] long established great power practice to
exert military influence on the Ottoman Empire through military/naval advisors
(discussed in Chapter VI).
418

Ottoman trade with the Powers represented a critical market for the former
because the Powers accounted for approximately seventy-five percent of all imports to
the Empire and consumed between sixty and seventy percent of Ottoman exports.
419
The
importance of this trade permitted the Powers to exert a political influence in the Ottoman
Empire. The Times (London) remarked on the connection between economic investment
in the Ottoman Empire and political influence in an 1893 article concerning the increase
in the scope of German trade, the remarkable expansion of German trade with Turkey
which has [been] followed upon [by] the growth of German political influence on the
Bosphorous [sic.]...;
420
and, regarding arms sales that favored the Germans, the Times
(London) wrote [the Ottomans] are not exempt from political influences. Within the
last ten years, Germany has almost exclusively furnished Turkey with torpedoes, rifles,

418
Barlas, 150.

419
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 828 and 833. In terms of global trade, this
placed the Ottoman Empire above Asia and below Latin America, see: Quataert, An
Economic and Social History, 830.

420
Germany, Times (London), 16 October 1893, 5:c; also see: The Past Financial
Year, Eastern Express (Constantinople), 6 January 1886, 8:b.

164
and cannon.
421
The position held by Germany due to its economic relationship with the
Porte advanced further following the British occupation of Cypress in 1878 (following
the Congress of Berlin, discussed in Chapter VI) and the occupation of Egypt in 1882, as
the Porte became increasingly concerned about British ambitions in the Empire.
However, Wilhelm IIs visit to Constantinople (discussed in Chapter VI), the first by any
European monarch, also contributed to this. However, the construction and growing
importance of the Anatolian Railway (as discussed above in relation to grain deliveries to
Constantinople and to the Ottoman Army, as well as the railways military importance)
cannot be denied.
The ascension of Wilhelm II marked an important change in the relationship
between Germany and the Ottoman Empire. Instead of Bismarcks public disinterest in
involving Germany in Ottoman affairs, the new Kaiser sought to make Germany a
powerful force in the Ottoman Empire and he often used his personal authority to
advance this position. The most famous of his personal efforts to extend German
influence in the Ottoman Empire came with the Kaisers official visit to Constantinople
(discussed in Chapter VI). However, while the Kaisers visit to the Ottoman Empire
catalyzed German activity in the territory, this was only the grandest of his efforts to
extend German influence in the Levant. More commonly, the Kaiser used his personal
influence to pressure private businesses, such as Deutsche Bank, to become involved
(often by extending loans) in the Ottoman Empire, even when the banks director, Georg
von Siemens, was reluctant to do so.
422
The Kaiser pressured Deutsche Bank, more than

421
Turkish Armaments, Times (London) 26 January 1892, 6:a.

422
Laves, 105.
165
any other entity, claiming that if the Deutsche Bank did not make the investment (or
loan), another European power surely would and Germany would lose its position in the
Empire.
423
The strength of the German banking position in the Empire encouraged the
British to develop the National Bank of Turkey (1909), which had the support of the
Foreign Office, and contrary to its name was a British-owned bank. In fact, the first
director for the bank resigned his position as Secretary of the British Post Office to head
the bank.
424
Thus, the Germans (through Deutsche Bank), the English (through the
National Bank of Turkey), and the French (through the Imperial Ottoman Bank) exerted a
powerful collective and individual economic influence in the Ottoman Empire. Although
formal colonies did not develop in the principal territories of the Ottoman Empire in the
pre-war period, the Powers, using intermediaries which they could control, exerted their
national interests in the Levant through economic imperialism.
This German economic investment in the Ottoman Empire is particularly
impressive given the meager German resources between 1870 and 1900. During this
period, Germany suffered three economic depressions (1873-1876, 1883-1888, and 1891-
1895
425
) and transformed its society from an agrarian nation to an industrial nation,
requiring major domestic investment and thus leaving less money for foreign
investment.
426
The aggressive expansion of German financial influence in the Ottoman

423
Ibid.

424
The National Bank of Turkey, Times (London), 9 August 1909, 9:b; Barth, 131.

425
Senate, National Monetary Commission: The Reichsbank, 61
st
Cong., 2
nd
sess., 1910,
Doc. 408, 7; The Financial Position of the German Empire, The Economist 19 July
1890, 923-924.

426
Feis, 60.
166
Empire developed from an intentional policy, directed by the central government, that
intended to extend German influence into the Ottoman Empire by providing loans to the
Ottoman government, which, in turn, would use that money to purchase German
manufactured goods (Export Capitalism). Further, the extension of German commercial
influence into the Ottoman Empire occurred concurrently with the extension of German
influence in Ottoman trade, government, and military affairs, as well as German cultural
and political imperialism.
The extension of German economic imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, as
previously mentioned, modeled itself on the model established by the British. This
model called for private banks (often with government connections) to invest, and for the
Foreign Office to support the banks in their endeavors. Such activities fit within the
broader pattern of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century imperialism. The German
activity in the Ottoman Empire was not substantively different from French efforts to
assert economic influence in China,
427
or even German efforts to sell weapons from the
Krupp factory for imperial gain in China.
428
Further, just as opposition to the imperial
activities in China exhibited themselves in the Boxer Revolution, the Ottoman citizens
threw bombs at the Crdit Lyonnais and the Tobacco Regie.
429


427
Brtel, 52-61; although the author singles out economic imperialism, it is well known
that the French (as well as the rest of the European powers and the United States) also
developed their own protectorates in China, so this economic imperialism was merely a
component of a broader French imperial effort in China.

428
William Francis Mannix, Memoirs of Li Hung Chang (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1913), 156-168.

429
Turkeys Sultan Warned, New York Times, 31 August 1896, 5:3. Other examples of
nationalist opposition towards the imperialism of the Powers are discussed below.

167
Of all the aspects of German imperialism in the Ottoman Empire considered in
this dissertation (economic, political, and cultural), economic imperialism has received
the greatest attention from scholars. However, while a consensus of scholars would
likely concur that this was imperial, such a consensus would not be universally accepted.
Some historians have contended that the economic imperialism (through the PDA and the
European railways) promoted a general European imperialism without advancing the
imperial interests of any specific country.
430
Others have contended that the railways
were not imperial at all,
431
and were rather merely an aggressive investment strategy that
used a system of financial guarantees (the kilometric guarantees) that were detrimental to
the Ottoman state. However, other historians have argued that the economic imperialism
of the Powers was a precursor, as in the case of Egypt, to colonialism.
432
Indeed, the
famous Pan-German League (which advocated for colonialism) asserted a German claim
to portions of the Ottoman Empire.
433
This dissertation contends that the cumulative
consequence of the German economic involvement in the Ottoman Empire was economic
imperialism. However, this economic imperialism operated within (and in many cases
accelerated) the broader context of German imperialism in the Ottoman Empire. This
included German political and cultural imperialism. Considering a history of the
Baghdad Railway without the context in which it existed is inappropriate, rather,

430
Quataert, Ottoman Reform and Agriculture, 60.

431
Barth, 121.

432
Grunwald, 88; Hamilton, 48.

433
Henderson, 57.
168
historians must consider German economic imperialism within the context of the broader
German imperial practices of the period.





















169

CHAPTER VI

GERMAN POLITICAL IMPERIALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1877-1908

Following the 1875 Ottoman bankruptcy, the commanding British position in
Ottoman financial affairs collapsed, and the Germans became increasingly influential,
eventually building the principal Ottoman railways and becoming the Portes second
largest source of foreign capital. Predictably, the Germans also secured a strong political
position for themselves. Although the decision to become involved in economic
imperialism occurred because of the ascension of Wilhelm II, German involvement in the
political affairs of the Ottoman Empire predated German economic imperialism. While
German political interests in the Ottoman Empire first developed under Bismarck, the
circumstances of international politics and diplomacy catalyzed the German political
position in the Ottoman Empire in 1888, the year that Wilhelm II came to power.
Wilhelms ascension to the position of Kaiser coincided with a series of international
events that ultimately limited the ability (or interest) of both the Russians and the British
to exert continued political influence in the Ottoman Empire. Although the French
remained actively involved in Ottoman affairs, they were generally content to constrain
their efforts to particular portions of the Empire (Tunisia, Syria, etc.). But, after 1888,
434

the Germans became one of the principal (if not the most important) political powers in
Constantinople. This position increased dramatically as Wilhelm II made a personal visit
to the Empire (the first ever by a European head of state, 1898), sent increasingly
important military advisors and missions, and did not oppose the Turkish genocide

434
Geyer, 83-85. Geyer concludes that the Congress of Berlin revealed a Russian
Emperor without clothes, Geyer, 85.

170
against the Armenians as the other European Powers did. Thus, the Germans, beginning
with the Treaty of San Stefano (1878, and its revision at the Congress of Berlin) and
concluding with the First World War, became the principal political power in the
Ottoman Empire.
435

The origins of German political influence in the Ottoman Empire came from the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. Although the specifics of this war are not important to
the argument presented here, the treaty that resulted from it, the Treaty of San Stefano
(1878), compelled the Germans to become directly involved in Ottoman political affairs.
While the Eastern Question (the question about what would happen when the Ottoman
Empire collapsed) had vexed the European Powers for more than a century, affairs in the
Balkans had been relatively quiet for the twenty years since the conclusion of the
Crimean War (1856).
436
This relatively peaceful situation deteriorated as the forces of
nationalism, religious conflict, poverty, and dissatisfaction with the Ottoman government
began to become manifest in the Balkans.
437
Ultimately, the Near Eastern crisis that
developed in the Balkans in the 1870s threatened the security Bismarck sought for

435
A resurgence of British influence occurred following the 1908 Young Turk
Revolution. However, this was short lived and German influence regained its strong
position within the Empire quickly.

436
Otto Pflanze, The Period of Consolidation, vol. 2 of Bismarck and the Development of
Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 415-416. There had been other
revolts in the European territories of the Ottoman Empire, such as the one in Crete in
1867-1869; however, with the Bosnian and Herzegovinian revolt of 1875, scholars
contend that the status quo changed, generally from a quiet area of the Ottoman Empire
to a dangerous one. See: Geyer, 68.

437
Pflanze, II: 416. For more on the general condition of the Balkans, see: Mihailo
Stojanovic, The Great Powers and the Balkans, 1875-1878 (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1939).

171
Germany through his European foreign policy (the so called Kissingen Dictation, in
which Bismarck sought a political environment in which all the European powers, except
France, needed the Germans and were thus prevented from forming coalitions against the
Germans
438
). Consequently, Bismarcks decision to become involved in the Ottoman
Empire and, specifically, the Balkans, originated as a component of his European policy
rather than as an aggressive imperialistic policy. However, after 1888, the Germans
advanced their political influence in Constantinople for more imperialistic reasons.
439

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 began with predictable Russian victories
over the Ottoman armies; however, following a brief period of Russian success, the
Ottoman forces stiffened at Plevna
440
.
441
Eventually, military and domestic
circumstances made the continuation of this war mutually undesirable and the two
powers agreed to the Treaty of San Stefano (1878). Although this treaty was
overwhelmingly a victors peace, its most devastating terms concerned the creation of a
greater Bulgaria in the Balkan Peninsula. This greater Bulgaria established the
boundaries of Bulgaria that accorded with those of the greatest Bulgarian nationalists.
Officials in London, Berlin, and Paris viewed such a large Bulgaria, which the former
understood as a major advancement of Russian imperial interests in the Ottoman Empire,

438
Pflanze, II: 418; and Grosse Politik, II, 153-154.

439
Wolfgang J. Mommsen, The Concert of Europe, in Bismarck, Europe, and Africa:
The Berlin Africa Conference 1884-1885 and the Onset of Partition (London: Oxford
University Press, 1988), 152-153.

440
Geyer, 81.

441
Many Russian officials sought to avoid this war, see: Geyer, 69-70.

172
as a threat to their Ottoman interests.
442
Although the Powers, as well as the Ottoman
Empire, recognized that Russia would dominate the new Bulgaria,
443
the treaty did not
technically sever this new Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire. Rather, Bulgaria became
an autonomous principality, with a Christian ruler elected by the Bulgarians from
candidates proposed by the Powers, within the Ottoman Empire. Although the
Bulgarians were to elect their own king,
444
the treaty required the Porte to approve this
candidate before he could officially become the Bulgarian ruler. Further, the Bulgarians
had to pay a portion of the Ottoman debt, guarantee that its new government would not
revoke the capitulation rights granted to foreigners by the Sultan, and make annual tribute
payments to the Sultan.
445
While the Treaty appeared to keep Bulgaria firmly within the
Ottoman Empire, broad agreement existed that this new state constituted a major
assertion of Russian imperial influence into the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire.
446


442
Richard J. Crampton, Bulgaria 1878-1918: A History, East European Monographs,
vol. 138 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 22. Crampton provides a
description of the specific boundaries of the greater Bulgaria; however, they are not
relevant here, it is sufficient to recognize the size of this state.

444
The Bulgarians elected Prince Alexander of Battenberg, a German, to become their
leader. However, he was also a nephew of the Tsar and received the latters approval.
See Crampton, 91, and Craig, 124.

445
Crampton, 23.

446
The Powers viewed this as an assertion of Russian influence, and imperialism, into the
Balkans because of the close relationship between the Bulgarians and the Russians. For
example, the Bulgarians were enthusiastic about the 1867 Moscow Slav Conference,
which was a symptom of pan-Slavism. See: Michael Boro Petrovich, The Emergence of
Russian Panslavism, 1856-1870 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), 202.
Also during the 1860s, a Russian interest in Eastern European Slavs grew with the work
of scholars like Nil Popov, who wrote of his travels through Eastern Europe and returned
to Russia advocating for intensified Slavic studies and for Slavic causes. Further, the
Russians held an ethnographic exhibit of Slavic culture in Moscow in 1865. See:
Petrovich, 199-200. However, other Russians called for the defeat of Turkey and the
173
Although the new Bulgaria, the so-called Greater Bulgaria (for reasons already
described), officially remained part of the Ottoman Empire, the Powers correctly
perceived this new state as a major intensification of Russian influence in the Ottoman
Empire. One reason that the European Powers perceived this new state as a declaration
of Russian interests was that the Treaty of San Stefano required the Ottoman military to
leave the new Bulgaria and for the establishment of a Bulgarian militia (a euphemism for
army), which the Russians would train and likely dominate. In addition, the Russians
expected that Bulgarian gratitude for the assistance provided from St. Petersburg (in
securing Bulgarian independence) would result in deference to Russia.
447
With a loyal
and trained Bulgarian militia under Russian influence, the Russians threatened to become
the dominant power in the Balkans and possibly the Ottoman Empire. Such a position
threatened the interests of almost every other European Power, but it posed a particular
threat to Bismarcks strategy for the Orient. This intensification of Russian imperial
interests threatened the Bismarckian policy of maintaining peace in the Ottoman Empire
because conflict in the Orient could, potentially, upset the balance he sought to secure
between Britain, France, and Russia (in Europe).
448


creation of a Slavic federation, see: David MacKenzie, The Serbs and Russian Pan-
Slavism, 1875-1878 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1967), 112.

447
Craig, 124-125.

448
Marchand, Down from Olympus, 92.

174
Following the Treaty of San Stefano, Russia pressured the European Powers to
push for an international conference to address the Eastern Question.
449
This conference
met in Berlin and it inaugurated Germanys political influence in the Ottoman Empire.
The principal issue addressed at this conference was the status of Bulgaria, the status of
which was the subject of more than one-third of the eventual articles in the Treaty of
Berlin (twenty-two of sixty-four articles).
450
However, Bulgaria was not Bismarcks
chief interest at this congress; rather, he sought to assuage the threats that the Near
Eastern Crisis posed to European stability. Specifically, Bismarck intended to repair
relations between the British and the Russians, which had deteriorated considerably
during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) and even further because of the resulting
treaty (San Stefano).
451

Bismarck evidently recognized that the Treaty of San Stefano and the Russo-
Turkish War of 1877-1878 marked a significant departure from established European
(specifically, British) policy for the Ottoman Empire. Since the Crimean War in 1854,
the British had insisted on maintaining the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire,
and, ordinarily would have supported the Ottoman Empire in its war with Russia.
However, with Lord Darbys departure from Whitehall and the subsequent appointment
of Lord Salisbury as Foreign Secretary, the English policy towards the Ottoman Empire

449
Imanuel Geiss (ed.), Der Berliner Kongre, 1878: Protokolle und Materialien,
Schriften des bundesarchivs, vol. 27 (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Vold, 1978), 15-21
(hereafter cited as Geiss, Der Berliner Kongre).

450
W.A. Gauld, The Dreikaiserbundnis and the Eastern Question, 1877-1878, The
English Historical Review 42(1927): 567. For the text of the treaty see: Hurewitz, 414.

451
Hurewitz, 413.

175
began to shift. The Powers could no longer be certain that the English would intervene to
prevent an invasion of the Ottoman territories.
452
Seeking to restore European harmony
and consensus towards the Ottoman Empire, Bismarck consented to host the Congress of
Berlin. Bismarck had a special reason to fear that increased tensions (specifically
between Austria-Hungary and Russia) in the Balkans would threaten German security.
The principal reason for this concern was that Russia and Austria-Hungary had
conflicting ambitions for imperial influence in the Balkans, and that if the two Powers
became involved in a Balkan war, they would both expect German assistance, due to
secret treaties that Germany had with both.
453
The untenability of such a position
catalyzed Bismarcks decision to host the Congress of Berlin. To secure European
involvement in this, he had to overcome established French reticence to recognize
Germany as a major European power (the recent Franco-Prussian War diminished French
desires to do so) as well as British and especially Russian concerns about the terms of the
proposed conference.
454
Generally, the terms of the agreements required to secure Great
Power participation in the congress are not important, except to note that the British

452
Grosse Politik, VIII, 89, 130-133; and Craig, 237.

453
Craig, 111. As previously mentioned, Bismarcks goals following German unification
emphasized the development of the state, and, consequently, he sought to avoid
involvement in wars or foreign affairs. The Congress of Berlin occurred concurrently
with his efforts to reorganize the German and Prussian governments, his efforts at tax and
tariff reform, etc. See: Pflanze, 435. Also see: Alexander Novotny, sterreich, die
Trkei und das Balkanproblem in Jahre des Berliner Kongresses, vol. 1 of Quellen und
Studien zur Geschichte des Berliner Kongresses 1878 (Kln: Hermann Bhaus Verlag,
1957), 51-68.

454
DBFP, I:B:IV, 309-317.

176
required a promise of colonial possession of Cypress, for strategic reasons, if the
Russians retained any of the Ottoman Asiatic provinces.
455

Representatives of the Powers met in Berlin from 13 June until 13 July 1878. The
most important consequence of the Congress, and its subsequent treaty, was the
redefinition of Bulgaria. The Powers altered the Bulgarian boarders so that the size of the
state went from 172,000 km
2
to 64,500 km
2
, thus reducing the state to thirty-seven
percent of its size under the Treaty of San Stefano.
456
This new Bulgaria remained an
autonomous province under the Ottoman Empire and the process for the selection of its
ruler did not change (i.e. the Sultan still had to approve whomever the Bulgarians
selected). The Bulgaria established by this treaty was to be administered by a Russian
Provisional Authority (nominally under the Sultan) in consultation with the Porte and
consular representatives.
457
While the Berlin Treaty diffused much of the international
tension over the status of Bulgaria (and therefore Russian influence in the Balkans), the
treaty was not universally successful. For example, it failed to adequately address the
problems of the Greeks (who sought independence from the Ottoman Empire). Although
the Congress of Berlin marked the final meeting of the Powers regarding the Ottoman

455
Pflanze, II: 437. The Congress of Berlin marks the beginning of a period of
colonization of the Ottoman Empire, including: Cyprus (1878), Egypt (1882), Tunis
(1881), etc. See, Ersi Demetriadou, Contested Visions: Colonialist Politics in Cyprus
under British Rule, 1878-1890 (Ph.D. diss, New York University, 1998). The British
and Russians were also competing for imperial influence in Central Asia, particularly
Afghanistan. See: Thomas L. Hughes, The German Mission to Afghanistan, 1915-
1916, in Germany and the Middle East, 1871-1945 Wolfgang Schwanitz (ed.),
(Princeton: Markus Weiner Publications, 2004), 25-63.

456
Crampton, 23.

457
Ibid.

177
Empire before the First World War, subsequent international agreements included
provisions regarding Ottoman affairs. In one such agreement, Bismarck eventually
acknowledged Russian interests in the lesser Bulgaria through a secret article attached
to the Reinsurance Treaty signed by the two Powers, Germany and Russia, which
pledged neutrality if one or the other went to war.
458
Although the Berlin Congress did
not resolve all of the outstanding Ottoman issues, it did resolve much of the tension over
Bulgaria, and, the individual Powers generally recognized the danger in asserting
themselves too aggressively in the principal territories of the Empire. However, in spite
of the recognition that strong assertions of imperialism could result in conflict between
European states, in the years immediately following the congress, the Empire lost much
of its European territory, as well as Cyprus, Egypt, and within a few years a significant
portion of North Africa.
459

The critical German concern addressed though the Congress of Berlin was not,
however, the status of Bulgaria, the Balkans, or even the Ottoman Empire; rather, the
Germans (through Bismarck) sought to repair the fractures in European politics that
threatened the European peace and therefore German security. Although the Congress of
Berlin addressed this question, concerns about European stability remained throughout
Bismarcks term as chancellor. Bismarck believed that the best strategy for preventing a
breech of the European peace due to Near Eastern affairs was to try to guarantee the

458
Craig, 131.

459
This reflected an important change (discussed below) in which the Ottoman
government, supported by a reformed Ottoman army (under German influence), focused
on maintaining the Asiatic territories of the Ottoman Empire and recognized that its
European and African territories were likely unsustainable.

178
status quo. This policy resulted in two agreements (20 October 1887 and 12 December
1887) between the Powers (excepting Russia) that bound the signatories to preserve the
territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire and forbade the Sultan from granting formal
sovereignty to any power over Bulgaria or the Straits. Further, if the Ottoman Empire
faced a legitimate threat to its continued existence due to encroachments from other
foreign powers, the signatories (Germany, Britain, and Italy
460
) would partition and
occupy the Empire. However, these agreements also recognized that the best way to
avoid such a circumstance was to bolster the position of the Sultan within his Empire.
461

Consequently, it became a feature of both Bismarckian and Wilhelmanian policy towards
the Ottoman Empire to provide the latter with resources (railways, military supplies,
military training, loans, formal state visits to increase prestige, etc.) to assist the Sultan in
his ability to administer his Empire.
462
However, through the resources provided by the
Germans, the latter were able to extend an imperial influence into the Ottoman Empire.
The Bismarckian involvement in the political affairs of the Ottoman Empire,
specifically through the Congress of Berlin, but also through other agreements, originated
out of a concern that Near Eastern affairs might upset the delicate balance of power that
Bismarck sought to secure within Europe. Consequently, while German involvement in
the political affairs of the Ottoman Empire remained until the conclusion of the First

460
The Italian interest in the Ottoman Empire originally developed from their imperial
ambitions for Ottoman territory in North Africa. Following French successes in Tunis
and other North African territories, an animosity between the French and the Italians
developed regarding Ottoman affairs.

461
Norman Rich, Friedrich von Holstein: Politics and Diplomacy in the Era of Bismarck
and Wilhelm II, vol. 1 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 214; Grosse
Politik IV, 345-350.

462
Ibid., 214-215; Grosse Politik IV, 345-350.
179
World War, it is possible to categorize this involvement into two periods, the
Bismarckian period and the Wilhelmine period. While the former emphasized
involvement in Ottoman affairs to maintain the security of Germany, the latter
encouraged involvement in the Near East for strategic and imperial reasons. Thus,
beginning with the crowning of Wilhelm II (1888), German influence in the Ottoman
Empire became increasingly imperial. Importantly, this increasingly imperialistic
German involvement in the political affairs of the Ottoman Empire coincided with events
in international politics that precluded the English and the Russians from continuing to
assert themselves in Ottoman political affairs. Consequently, beginning in 1888, a
confluence of German interest in increased involvement in the Ottoman Empire and a
parallel decrease in the activity of Germanys rivals created an opportunity for the
Germans to assert themselves (politically) in the Near East.
Bismarcks resignation in March 1890 precipitated a crisis in German
government;
463
specifically, his immediate successor, Leo von Caprivi (1890-1894), had
limited knowledge of foreign affairs,
464
and from 1890 until the start of the First World
War, foreign policy decisions and direction came increasingly from Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Bismarcks departure from the Chancellorship in 1890 was quickly followed by an end to
his foreign policy system, which expired when the Germans failed to renew the
Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in April 1890. Historian Gordon Craig contends that

463
Conventionally, when historians write about a crisis following Bismarcks departure
they mean the constitutional crisis that Germany suffered. Although the debate about
who was to direct foreign policy was part of that crisis, the issues of foreign policy are
considered here without considering the whole constitutional crisis.

464
Craig, 231; Rhl, 732.

180
following this decision, the old Bismarckian diplomatic system became a thing of the
past.
465
While Wilhelm II was criticized (properly) by his contemporaries
466
for his
mercurial foreign policy, his New Course for German foreign policy and the
subsequent Weltpolitik produced a principled and directed foreign policy for the Ottoman
Empire.
Although Weltpolitik emphasized the development of colonial and imperial
territory around the world, German involvement (as noted in Chapter V) in the Ottoman
Empire did not await the arrival of such a policy to begin to exert its influence. As
previously noted, beginning in 1888, the Germans began to extend loans to the Ottoman
Empire and to construct railways, ports, and roads as assertions of their influence. While
Weltpolitik represented a change in the relations between the Germans and the rest of the
world, aspects of Bismarcks policy towards the Ottoman Empire remained in Wilhelms
new foreign policy. Among the most important components of both the Bismarckian
policy and the Wilhelmine policy towards the Ottoman Empire was the principle that the
continued existence of the Ottoman Empire was desirable. The preferred method for
securing such an existence was to provide support to the Sultan by supplying him with
the mechanisms necessary to bolster his ability to administer his empire (railways, roads,
military reform, protection from the other Powers, etc.).
467
While large capital projects
are the most visible of such German efforts in the Empire, they are not necessarily the
most dramatic.

465
Craig, 232.

466
Rhl, 343.

467
Rich, 214; Grosse Politik, volume IV, 345-349.

181
Wilhelms dedication to building railways and other related projects is well
known (such as ports, as discussed in Chapter V), and is properly seen (among other
things, such as a market for excess German industrial production) as a continuation of the
Bismarckian policy of supporting the Sultan and bolstering his ability to control his
empire. However, Wilhelm dramatically enhanced the Bismarckian policy (and thus the
German political position in the Ottoman Empire) by making an official state visit to the
Ottoman Empire in 1898, the first such visit by a sitting leader from one of the European
Powers.
468
Recalling Wilhelms visit, Bernhard von Blow (Foreign Secretary, 1897-
1900; Chancellor 1900-1909) wrote that Wilhelm [had a] predilection for the Sultan
and all things Turkish
469
However, Wilhelms decision to visit Constantinople in 1898
rested less on his interests in all things Turkish, and more on his imperial and foreign
policy ambitions.
470

The timing of the Kaisers visit to the Ottoman Empire, following the first major
Ottoman massacre of the Armenians (1894-1897) and the resulting European indignation
towards the Sultan and his subjects, cannot escape a political context. While most of the
European Powers protested the treatment of the Armenians, Wilhelm II made a historic,

468
Although Wilhelms visit was the first from a sitting European leader, other European
countries had sent important delegates (even members of the royal family, usually with
the goal of securing concessions). See: Swedish Princes in the Levant, Eastern
Express (Constantinople), 11 March 1885, 9:a. Other visits occurred but the press
(outside of Constantinople) did not cover them, and they are difficult to document.

469
From Secretary of State to Imperial Chancellor, vol.1 of Memoirs of Prince von Blow
trans. F.A. Voigt (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1931), 292.

470
Wilhelm was not ignorant of the implications of foreign visits. See: The Political
Results of the German Emperors Journey, The Economist 27 October 1888, 1342-1343.

182
highly public, and supportive visit to the Ottoman Empire.
471
Further, the other European
Powers (specifically Britain and France) simultaneously began to support anti-Ottoman
organizations and movements within their boarders. For example, the Anglo-Armenian
Committee met in London (with the approbation of the English government) and made
public calls for the arrest of those involved in the earliest of the Armenian massacres.
472

Additionally, the First and Second Congresses of Ottoman Opposition Parties met in
Paris in 1902 and 1907, respectively.
473
Consequently, the Kaisers decision to visit the
Ottoman Empire, which remained under a cloud of general European disapproval for its
actions against the Armenian Christians, cannot be separated from the probability that
this visit was intended to facilitate the German position in the Empire.
Surprisingly, Wilhelms dramatic visit to the Levant has received less scholarly
attention than other aspects of the German relationship with the Ottoman Empire.
474
The
Kaiser began his trip to the Near East in October 1898, and, following brief stops in

471
The European indignation is well recorded, see: Peter Marsh, Lord Salisbury and the
Ottoman Massacres, The Journal of British Studies 11 (1972): 63-82.

472
The Sultan and the Powers, Times (London), 5 June 1895, 6:g.

473
Dikran Mesrob Kaligian, The Armenian Revolutionary Federation under Ottoman
Constitutional Rule, 1908-1914, (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 2003), 1-3. Kaligian
provides a succinct but informative explanation of the origins of the Ottoman-Armenian
conflict in the first pages of his dissertation. Both the Anglo-Armenian Committee and
the meetings of Ottoman opposition parties were marginally covered in the contemporary
press. It would be valuable to know the relationship of these parties to the British and
French governments. It is quite possible (indeed likely in the French case, and somewhat
less likely in the British case) that these movements received support form the European
governments, if this is the case, the German position as the Ottoman protector becomes
even stronger.

474
Julius Waldschmidt, Rckschau und Rckbesinnung, in Der Kaisers Reise in den
Orient 1898, GesellschaftGeschichteGegenwart, vol. 27 (Berlin: Wolfgange Weist:
2002), 10.

183
Saxony and Vienna, he arrived in Constantinople on 18 October.
475
Initially, the Kaiser
intended to visit Constantinople, Palestine, and Egypt; however, threats to his security,
which subsequent scholars have contended was a ruse for a British disinterest in Wilhelm
visiting, precluded him from visiting Egypt.
476
The purpose of such a trip is difficult to
ascertain; however, coming as it did following the massacre of the Armenians (1894-
1897), the Fashoda Incident (in which imperial tensions between the French and British
intensified), and the beginning of the Boer War, the visit appeared to some
contemporaries as an attempt to advance German political influence in the Ottoman
Empire. Indeed, the New York Times, in October 1898, speculated that the visit will
have a political significance [and that a formal] German colony may be planted.
477

Although a formal German colony did not develop from this visit, Wilhelm did little to
disguise the political significance of this trip, and the Deutsche Kolonialzeitung devoted a
series of seven articles to the Kaisers activities in the Ottoman Empire, calling for
intensified German imperial involvement there.
478
Speaking to the German colony

475
Evans Lewin, The German Road to the East: An Account of the Drang nach Osten
and of Teutonic Aims in the Near and Middle East (New York: George H. Doran and
Company, 1917), 104; Emperor William in Turkey, New York Times 20 October 1898,
7:3.

476
Turkish Escort for the Kaiser in the Dardanelles, The Chicago Tribune 17 October
1898, 1:6.

477
Emperor Williams Trip, New York Times 9 October 1898, 17:3.

478
These articles began on 29 September 1898 and ran through October. For an example,
see Der deutsche Kaiser im Orient, Deutsche Kolonialzeitung 29 September 1898, 348.
However, this newspaper also carried articles on other aspects of the Ottoman Empire,
for example, see: Muhammedanisches Recht, Deutsche Kolonialzeitung 29 September
1898, 349-350. The Deutsche Kolonialzeitung also included a significant number of
articles on Enver Paa, see note 515.

184
(which, as previously discussed, does not mean a formal colony, but rather a group of
German nationals living in a foreign country, under the law and rules of that foreign
country), Wilhelm said:
You yourselves are best able to judge the benefits of such a policy
[Wilhelms Eastern Policy]; and I am exceedingly glad you have been
able to profit by it and to acquire so respected a position in this country
[Turkey]. My satisfaction is greater because, in acting thus, you have
been an honor to the German Empire. I hope that you will continue in
the same paths. You may be certain that I will continue to display an
interest in you and to extend to you my protection.
479


More famously, the Kaiser inflamed the other Powers when he addressed the Muslims of
the world, declaring them under his protection.
480
Wilhelms antagonism of the other
Powers did not conclude with his declaration of protection for the worlds Muslims; he
also accepted, as a gift from the Sultan, the Virgins Abode, a Catholic religious artifact
that the French government had tried to secure from the Sultan for years.
481

While much of Kaiser Wilhelms activities in the Ottoman Empire displeased the
other European rulers, the Kaisers declaration that he was the protector of the three
hundred million Muslims around the world,
482
created significant dissent within the
British government. At the time of Wilhelms statement, German colonial territories
contained a small number of Muslims, especially when compared to the large Islamic

479
The German Emperor in Constantinople, Times (London) 20 October 1898, 3:b.

480
Hughes, 28.

481
The Kaiser in Turkey, New York Times 6 November 1898, 7:1. This was part of the
conflict for influence in the Ottoman Empire. The Germans and the Ottomans were
concerned about the French influence with the Catholic Church and the relations between
the Catholics and the Ottoman government, see: Grosse Politik, XII, 594-597 and 604-
605.

482
Hughes, 28.

185
population in British India and Egypt. An important reason, especially considering later
events in the First World War, why the British objected to this assertion so strongly (even
if the reaction was somewhat restrained in public statements) was that the British feared a
pan-Islamic movement. The British worried that such a movement would, without regard
for political boundaries, challenge the position of the Europeans in the Ottoman Empire,
and, most importantly, India. This British fear of a pan-Islamic revolt lasted until the
conclusion of the First World War.
483
Further (as previously discussed), one of the
established methods used to assert political influence in the Ottoman Empire was to claim
to be the protector of a specific religious group.
484
For example, in the Treaty of Khk
Kainardji (1774), the Russians became the protector of the Sultans Orthodox subjects,
and, later the French established the right to be the protector of the Sultans Catholic
subjects. Consequently, while the specific intent of Wilhelms statement cannot be
reconstructed, the European powers reacted to it with concern, especially as German
political influence in Constantinople had grown considerably in recent years.
While the threat of formal German colonies in the Ottoman Empire displeased
many in London, Paris, and St. Petersburg, the Kaisers trip was more than an effort to
advance German imperial interests in the Ottoman Empire. A principal motivation for
the Kaisers visit was to secure the final concession for the Baghdad Railway to reach the
Persian Gulf, which the Sultan granted immediately after the conclusion of the trip. A

483
Donald M. McKale, The Kaisers Spy: Max von Oppenheim and the Anglo-German
Rivalry Before and During the First World War, European History Quarterly 27(1997):
199-201 (hereafter cited as: McKale, The Kaisers Spy,).

484
As noted above, the French influence with the Catholics and with the Vatican vexed
both the Ottoman government and the Germans, see: Grosse Politik, XII, 594-597 and
606-608.

186
secret provision of the treaty that permitted the Germans to finish the Baghdad Railway
also permitted them to keep half of the antiquities found at any authorized
excavation.
485
However, the interests of maintaining German colonial neutrality
prevented the Germans from enforcing this article as fully as they might have.
486

Moreover, the Kaisers visit also encouraged the Sultan to meet with German
industrialists interested in investing in the Ottoman Empire (such as those trying to
electrify Constantinople, against the wishes of the Sultan).
487
Based on these meetings,
the Kaisers Foreign Secretary, Leo von Blow, recalled the potential that the Ottoman
Empire presented for German investment.
488
German, American, and British papers
reported that the concessions granted to the Germans during the Kaisers visit came at the
expense of a promise from the Kaiser to the Sultan that the former would guarantee the
support of the integrity of the Sultans Asiatic possessions
489

Thus, beginning with Bismarck and continuing through the Wilhelmine period,
the Germans recognized the importance of maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman
Empires Asiatic territories. While the Germans were willing to permit the Ottoman
European territories to be partitioned among the Powers (provided that these territories
remained, formally, under the jurisdiction of the Porte), maintaining the integrity of the

485
Shaw, 120, 133.

486
Ibid. 120. Although it is clear (as explained in Chapter VI) that the Germans had little
trouble appropriating those artifacts that interested them most.

487
Blow, I: 291-292; McKale, 14.

488
Blow, I:294.

489
Sees Armed Alliance between Germany and Turkey in the East, Chicago Tribune 6
November 1898, 13:2.

187
Asiatic territories was an important component in preventing a European war. A method
for advancing this goal was to provide the Ottoman government loans with which the
latter could hire German companies to build large capital projects, but the Germans also
made a formal state visit to the Ottoman Empire when the latter was suffering
internationally for its slaughter of the Armenians. However, the Germans also began a
program of restructuring and retraining the Ottoman military (particularly its army).
Through this program, the Germans formed an Ottoman army which could control much
of the interior of the Empire as well as permit the Germans to exert political influence in
the Empire, both in Constantinople and in the interior provinces, because there was no
real distinction between civil and military responsibilities in the Ottoman state. However,
this restructured army also permitted the Ottoman government an opportunity to protect
itself from further European incursions into their territory, while facilitating the ability of
the Germans to influence Ottoman political affairs.
German Military Relations with the Ottoman Empire
The specifics of the three major German military missions to the Ottoman Empire
(Helmut von Moltke (1800-1891, in Ottoman service 1835-1839), Baron Colmar Frieherr
von der Goltz (1843-1916, in Ottoman service 1883-1895), and Otto Limon von Sanders
(1855-1929, in Ottoman service, 1913-1918)) are generally well known. The renowned
associated with these particular missions (and there were other German military missions
to the Ottoman Empire) developed not only from the eventual importance of these
individuals to German military history, but also from the extensive publications that each
188
of these advisors produced regarding their time in the Ottoman Empire.
490
Based largely
on this volume of publications (and the efforts of historians to explain the origins of the
First World War), scholars have devoted significant attention to the activities of these
German military advisors in the Ottoman Empire. However, historians have focused
predominantly on the contribution that these advisors made to the origins of the First
World War and the Ottoman involvement in it, instead of the German imperial ambitions
in the Empire. Among the most established arguments to develop from this focus is the
contention that German involvement, specifically that of General Limon von Sanders, in
Ottoman military affairs propelled a reluctant Ottoman Empire into the First World War
on the side of the Central Powers. However, the most recent and careful scholarship on
this topic, rejects such a claim.
491
Indeed, a very recent dissertation contends that the

490
Helmuth von Moltke, Der russische-trkische feldzug in der europischen Trkei 1828
und 1829 dargestellt im jahre 1845 (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1877); Helmuth von Moltke,
Unter dem Halbmond: Erlebnisse in den alten Trkei 1835-1839 (Tbingen: Erdmann,
1979); Helmuth von Moltke, Briefe ber Zustnde und Begebenheiten in der Trkei aus
den Jahren 1835-1839 (Berlin: E.S. Mittler, 1876); Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz,
Generalfeldmarschall Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz Denkwrdigkeiten (Berlin: E.S.
Mittler, 1929); Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz, The Nation at Arms: A Treatise on
Modern Military Systems and the Conduct of War trans. Phillip A. Ashworth (London:
Hugh Rees Press, 1913); General Liman von Sanders, Five Years in Turkey (Nashville,
Tennessee: The Battery Press, 2000). There are many others but these books provide a
sample of the memiors published by these military leaders.

491
Akskal, iii, 1, 5; Trumpener, Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 12-13; Ulrich
Trumpener, Liman von Sanders and the German-Ottoman Alliance, Journal of
Contemporary History 1(1966): 181. The controversy exists, partially, because so many
of the German records were destroyed in the Second World War, see: F.A.K. Yasamee,
Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz and the Rebirth of the Ottoman Empire, Diplomacy and
Statecraft 9(1998): 91 (hereafter cited as Yasamee, Rebirth of the Ottoman Empire)
Yasamee does indicate that a further study of the Ottoman resources would yield more
information on this but indicates that scholars have generally not used Ottoman resources
very fully. Akaksal did use Ottoman resources extensively and concluded that the
general historiographic contention was incorrect.

189
Ottomans entered the First World War specifically to secure their autonomy from the
Great Powers and they believed that the Central Powers offered them the greatest
opportunity to achieve that goal.
492
The general historiographic contention that German
military influence propelled the Ottomans to join the Central Powers likely developed
from the strong position that the Germans held in the Ottoman military (including
economic, political, and military influence), but, without considering such activity in a
broader imperial context, scholars have failed to study one of the most critical aspects of
the German military relationship with the Ottoman Empire.
Although these German military missions officially involved themselves only
with military affairs,
493
they increased international concern about the German imperial
influence in the Empire. Although the military assignments were technically non-
political, the appointment of Limon von Sanders, in 1913, was accomplished, at least
partially, to check British influence
494
and resulted in the Russian government taking
umbrage [over the significance of this assignment].
495
This resentment from the other
Powers concerning the activities of German military advisors in the Ottoman Empire
probably developed from the recognition that, in addition to the reorganization and

492
This is the general argument of Akaksals dissertation, but a summary of this may be
found in Akaksal, 6-13.

493
Germany Resents Ententes Protest, New York Times, 21 December 1913, 6:1.

494
Following the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, the British enjoyed a brief period of
resurgence in the Ottoman Empire. There was a nationalistic reaction against the German
position in Turkey, and the British (temporarily) benefited from it. However, the
Germans never completely lost their position (indeed, it remained, in many ways, strong),
and reasserted themselves after 1910.

495
von Sanders, 3 and 5. For more on the von Sanders military mission, see: Wallach,
108-125, but this is a well known mission and there are many publications that address it.

190
training of the Ottoman army, these advisors had a political significance. This
recognition likely originated from the established pattern in which the Powers sent
advisors to territories in the Ottoman Empire in which the Power maintained an interest;
for example, Russian military officials in the service of the Ottoman Imperial
Government were dispatched to Macedonia to reorganize the Turkish gendarmerie
stationed there.
496
However, because Russian interests in the Balkans were well known,
the assignment of Russian troops to Macedonia was perceived as an assertion of Russian
imperial ambitions (a similar statement could be made about Russian troops in Bulgaria
or British military advisors in Egypt). Indeed, the Italians considered it (in the early
twentieth-century) established [G]reat [P]ower practice to exert military [and political]
influence on the Ottoman Empire through military/naval advisors.
497
Consequently,
accepting the official assertion that the German missions remained purely dedicated to
helping the Ottoman Empire restructure its military forces obscures a necessary
consideration of the imperial consequences of these German military missions.
498

However, before considering the imperial implications of these missions, it is important
to review (briefly) the activities of these military missions in the Ottoman Empire. The
specific details of this German involvement in the Ottoman military are generally

496
Edwin Maxey, The Turkish Question, Forum, March 1910, 296; DBFP, I: B: XIX,
189-205.

497
Barlas, 150.

498
Germany Resents Ententes Protest: Will go to Extremes Rather than Withdraw
Officers from Turkish Army, New York Times, 21 December 1913, 6:1. Even as late as
1913 the Germans claimed that these military missions had no imperial components.

191
unimportant (and reasonably well known);
499
however, a basic understanding of these
activities can contribute to an appreciation of the scope of the German-Ottoman military
relationship.
Although von Moltke is perhaps the most famous German general to operate in
the Ottoman Empire, his work concluded before Germany existed as a nation and, thus,
had limited consequences for imperialism. More important than the von Moltke mission
(for considerations of German imperial activity in the Ottoman Empire) was the mission
of General von der Goltz, who began his term in the Ottoman Empire under General von
Kaehler in 1882; von der Goltz accepted responsibility for the mission in 1883 and
maintained that position for the next twelve years.
500
During that time he, among other
things, served as the inspector for the Turkish army, became an instructor at the Ottoman
war college, forged relations with some of the Ottoman Empires most important
eventual leaders, trained countless officers (many of whom reached the highest levels of
the Ottoman military),
501
formed a formal staff college, and established important
political contacts. Based on these and other activities, the relationship between the
German officers sent to the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman military became quite
close, and, eventually, the Ottoman government permitted its army to be completely

499
One of the best resources for this is Jehuda L. Wallach, Anatomie einer Militrhilfe:
Die preuisch-deutschen Militrmissionen in der Trkei 1835-1919 publication of Des
Instituts fr Deutsche Geschichte Universitt Tel Aviv vol. 1 (Dsseldorf: Droste Verlag,
1967).

500
Goerlitz, 97. Indeed, Ottoman military reforms reached into the eighteenth-century,
see: Shaw, The Origins of Ottoman Military Reforms, 291-306.

501
Among the leaders trained by von der Goltz and his mission was Pertev Bey, with
whom von der Goltz developed plans for the invasion of British India., see: Yasamee,
Rebirth of the Ottoman Empire, 98; for a fuller accounting, see: Wallach, 64-107.

192
reorganized along German lines (this began, hesitantly, around 1844, but accelerated and
was sustained after the appointment of General von Kaehler in 1882 and von der Goltz
the following year
502
). Based on this influence, the Germans divided the Empire into
seven military districts each of which contained an army. Further, the Ottoman infantry
was reorganized on the German model, the system of schools that trained Ottoman
officers (and assigned Germans to teach in them) was expanded, the Ottomans adopted a
German system for of conscription, and an Ottoman General Staff, based on the Prussian
model, was developed.
503
Although von der Goltz initially had little faith in the ability of
the Ottoman armies, by the end of his twelve years in Ottoman service (as the leader,
he served one year before heading the mission), he believed the Ottoman armies were
prepared to assist the Germans in a war, as well as insure the survival (if not revival) of
the Ottoman state.
504
Ultimately, von der Goltz and the remainder of the German
Military Reform Commission
505
exercised enormous influence over the reorganization

502
Goerlitz, 97. Indeed, Ottoman military reforms reached into the eighteenth-century,
see: Stanford J. Shaw, The Origins of Ottoman Military Reforms: The Nizam-I Cedid
Army of Sultan Selim III, The Journal of Modern History 37(1965): 291-306.

503
Edward J. Erickson, Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913
(Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2003), 12-13; also see, McGarity 31-49.

504
Yasamee, Rebirth of the Ottoman Empire, 93-94, and 96. To some degree the First
World War affirmed this position as Ottoman troops defeated the British at Gallipoli.
See: Edward Erickson, Strength against Weakness: Ottoman Military Effectiveness at
Gallipoli, 1915, The Journal of Military History 65(2001): 981-1011 (hereafter cited as,
Erickson, Strength against Weakness). Von der Goltz believed that war between
Britain and Germany was inevitable, due to irreconcilable economic concerns.

505
Additional research on the German Military Reform Commission as a total unit would
be welcome, especially studies treating the general public awareness of this commission
and its activities.

193
and modernization of the Sultans military forces,
506
which permitted the Germans to
advance their imperial activities in the Ottoman Empire (explained below). Indeed, this
reorganization went so far that the New York Times considered the Ottoman-Macedonian
conflict of 1903 as a test of the value of German military instruction and Krupp
guns.
507

The German Military Reform Commission used, regardless of who was in charge,
the Prussian model for military organization, which had been adopted for all of Germany
after 1871, as the basis for reforms in the Ottoman Empire. This method for developing
and maintaining an army originated following Prussias defeat at Jena in 1806, and it
became a model that most of the western European states embraced.
508
This model
required short term commitments to the military (one to three years, versus the French
system which committed conscripts to a military career) and then service in the
Landwehr and the Landsturm militias. Because this system trained a considerable
proportion of the male population but allowed industry and agriculture to continue
without significant interruption, it became enormously popular throughout Europe.
509
To
reorganize and retrain the Ottoman armies, the Germans sent a significant number of

506
Erickson, 11.

507
The Attitude of Germany, 29 August 1903, New York Times, 2:1; also see: G.P.
Gooch and Harold Temperley, British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914
(London: Her Majestys Stationary Office, 1928), vol. 4, 34-43.

508
Goerlitz, 97. For a professional military assessment of the Turkish army in 1909, see:
R.H. Wilson, The Army of Turkey, Journal of the Military Service Institution of the
United States 48(1911): 279-290.

509
Zrcher, 9-10; Goerlitz, 97; in the Ottoman Empire the equivalent militias were the
Mstafiz (home guard) and the Redif (first reserve), see: Erickson, 12.

194
German officers to the Ottoman Empire.
510
Further, the German military influence in the
Ottoman Empire extended beyond the reformation of the Ottoman; the Ottoman
government relied upon German loans to purchase weaponry (especially artillery, which
was an important component of the new military doctrine) from the Krupp company
511

(from which the Ottoman government purchased increasingly large numbers of
weapons,
512
as previously mentioned in Chapter V).
In spite of the Ottoman decision to adopt the Prussian or German military model
(and to purchase German weapons), it would be incorrect to consider this as unqualified
evidence of German imperialism. Part of the reason that the adoption of the German
military system (and weapons) cannot simply be equated to imperialism is that so many
of the European countries (as well as many countries outside of Europe) adopted this
model. In the vast majority of the countries in which the German military model was
adopted, German imperialism did not exist. However, unlike most of the other countries
in which the German military model was adopted, a German imperial presence developed
in the Ottoman Empire. This imperial presence manifested itself through the influence
(discussed below) that the Germans asserted in their military relationship with the
Ottoman Empire (beyond the simple reorganization of the Ottoman force along
German lines).

510
The German Officers in Turkey, Eastern Express (Constantinople), 22 July 1885,
212:b; The German Officers in the Turkish Service, Eastern Express (Constantinople),
5 August 1885, 234:c.

511
Current Influences on Foreign Politics, Littells Living Age 4 January 1890, 28.

512
Wallach, 100-108.
195
One of the principal avenues by which the German domination of the Ottoman
army permitted the former to assert an imperial influence in the Ottoman territories was
the resulting change in the relationship between the Ottoman government in
Constantinople and the vast interior territories of the Empire (which had not been under
the control of the central government for more than a century). The freshly reformed
Ottoman military (along with the railways constructed by the various European Powers,
recall that one of the reasons that the kilometric guarantees developed was the diversion
of the railways through militarily significant areas resulting in promising commercial
markets being bypassed) permitted the Ottoman government to assert itself in territories
that it had not governed for decades. Because this newly formed army could not arrest
territorial (especially in the European provinces) losses, the Ottoman government,
beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, increasingly concentrated its attentions on its
Asiatic provinces and began a program of tribal pacification and internal control.
513
This
program extended the authority of Constantinople into territories conventionally
controlled by guilds, tribes, or nomads. Although not all of the tribes came under the
central governments direct political control, those that did not (such as the Kurds of
eastern Anatolia) existed in increasingly isolated areas.
514
This increased control over
areas previously governed by tribes, guilds, or nomads, permitted the government in
Constantinople to develop agricultural programs. These programs offered land in
exchange for a promise to farm the land, in the interior provinces, and further extended

513
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 768.

514
Ibid., 769.

196
the central control of the government.
515
A leading historian contends that these military
improvements permitted the Ottoman government to govern its interior territories in a
manner almost unprecedented in recent Ottoman history and resulted in revolutionary
changes in Ottoman land use and transformed the face of the countryside.
516

The Germans recognized the transformation of the Ottoman state and they sought
to capitalize on it. One example of the German effort to expand and assert influence in
the Ottoman interior territories comes from General von der Goltz, who served
(simultaneously with his military duties) as the president of the German-Asiatic Society.
The organization advocated for increased German commercial and cultural relations with
the Ottoman Empire, and specifically, the Empires Asiatic provinces that he viewed as
its future.
517
Further, a contemporary British observer argued that German influence in
Constantinople was developing because the Germans were opening it [the Ottoman
Empire] up to civilization.
518
Although the central government, through the use of its
German trained and organized army, extended its influence into the interior, and began to
exercise centralized political authority, it had to compromise with local elites who
remained in charge of tax collection (via tax farming) and thus remained wealthy and
influential.
519
Thus, while the Ottoman government did not have unqualified control over

515
Ibid.

516
Ibid.

517
Yasamee, Rebirth of the Ottoman Empire, 104. This assignment also questions the
assertion that the German mission was purely military and had no political or economic
agenda. Although this researcher could not locate these records, if these records could be
located they would likely prove quite useful.

518
Germanys Influence at Constantinople, The Living Age 10 June 1899, 722.

519
Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 769.
197
its interior provinces, the changes that resulted from the reorganization of its military
(based on the German model) permitted the Porte greater influence in these remote lands
than it had enjoyed for decades. The Germans recognized this, and through their
simultaneous construction of railways (and the connected developments, such as the
development of German banks in the Ottoman interior, the proposed development of
German agricultural colonies, increased trade, archaeological discoveries, etc.) began to
exert an imperial presence in many of the Ottoman territories.
An important reason that the reformed Ottoman army could facilitate the ability of
the central government to project its influence into the provinces was the new class of
officers that had been developed to function in the adopted German military model. This
new class of officers had a close affiliation with their German instructors and the latter
gained significant influence (both political and military) in the Empire. The reason that
the close relationship between the Germans and the Ottoman officers permitted the
former to assert their imperial ambitions was that, in the Ottoman Empire, no distinction
was drawn between the civilian and military arms of the state, since both functions were
frequently combined in the duties of a single individual.
520
Predictably, if no distinction
was established between civilian and military duties, it is not surprising that
contemporaries considered the Ottoman army to have been from it earliest originsa
political entity.
521
Thus, by becoming the dominant foreign power in the Ottoman army,
the Germans simultaneously gained important political influence.

520
Hale, Turkish Politics, 2.

521
Erickson, 21. The position of minister of war, which German influenced (and even
dominated) politicians held frequently, between its introduction and 1918, was
particularly closely connected to Ottoman politics, see: Erickson, 22. The most notable
198
The principal method that permitted the Germans to extend this influence was the
training, and resulting loyalty, of the new Ottoman officer corps. Recent historians have
emphasized the importance of this by considering the general Ottoman conviction that
the officer corps was the vanguard of a new enlightenment, based on the adoption of
Western techniques and thought patterns [principally German].
522
For example,
between 1873 and 1897, a period in which the Germans had strong influence, especially
after 1882, the Ottoman Harbiye War Academy graduated 3,918 officers,
523
many of
whom had been instructed by Germans and had an affection for Germany (von der Goltz
assigned German officers to teach at the academy,
524
the school was founded as a
technical school but under von der Goltz it became a modern military staff college
525
).
Moreover, many Turkish officers traveled to Germany, where they (and some of those
perceived as the most talented
526
) participated in further training and education in

example of this was Enver Paa, who served during the First World War. Much of the
conventional historiography on the Ottoman decision to enter the First World War
contends that Enver Paa pressured a reluctant Ottoman state to join Germany, as
previously described more recent scholarship had rebutted this claim.

522
Hale, Turkish Politics, 2. Indeed, the Ottoman army became an important factor in
the Young Turk revolt, see: Dankwart A. Rustow, The Army and the Founding of the
Turkish Republic, World Politics 11(1959): 517.

523
Erickson, 12.The officer corps had long been neglected in the Ottoman military.
Marshal de Saint-Arnaud, the French commander at the beginning of the Crimean War
contended that the Ottoman army had a high command and common soldiers, there was
not much in between. Quoted in David B. Ralston, Importing the European Army: The
Introduction of European Military Techniques and Institutions in the Extra-European
World, 1600-1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 62.

524
Erickson, Defeat in Detail, 12.

525
Ibid., 34ff 15; also see: Hale, Turkish Politics, 29-30.

526
Turkish German Entente, 19 July 1908, Washington Post, 14:6.
199
German military doctrine.
527
When the implications of this new military (with a
decidedly German orientation) are considered concurrently with the control that it
permitted the central Ottoman government to exert in its provinces and the development
of German railways in the Ottoman provinces, it increasingly appears that the Germans
had the ability to exert control over much of the Ottoman interior.
528

The establishment of German influence in the Ottoman army, and the subsequent
ability of the Germans to assert their imperial ambitions, resulted in the Germans
developing into the role of Ottoman protector. Since the British decision to end the
Crimean System, which directed them to go to war to prevent the partitioning of the
principal territories of the Ottoman Empire (after the 1875 Ottoman bankruptcy), the
Germans (first under Bismarck and then Wilhelm) insisted on maintaining the territorial
integrity of the Ottoman Empire.
529
This policy originated as a Bismarckian effort to
maintain the European balance of power,
530
but, by the mid eighteen-nineties, the

527
A study of these Turkish officers (specifically who they were and the success of their
careers) would be especially welcome. Of particular interest would be a memoir or diary
that illustrated how these officers related to Germany and their thoughts about it.

528
Much remains to be written about the interior Ottoman provinces, and Ottoman records
appear to be poor. New scholarship on the Ottoman Empire is beginning to include
increasingly detailed information on these remote provinces.

529
This became an increasingly important aspect or rationale for German activity in the
Ottoman Empire. For example, affairs in Morocco increased European interest in North
Africa. This resulted in an agreement among the European Powers regarding Egypt and
Morocco; however, Germany did not sign it. See: E.T.S. Dugdale, German Diplomatic
Documents, 1871-1914 (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1969), vol.3, 219-222; and British
Documents on the Origins of the War, vol. 3, 152-158.

530
Craig, 131.

200
Germans (and the other Powers) recognized their strong position in the Empire,
531
and
began to act as the Ottoman protectornot to assure the European balance of power but
to protect their position in the Empire. Indeed, this became a public rationalization for
increasing the size of the German navy.
532
The Germans advanced this policy by
accepting responsibility (from the French who held it into the early twentieth-century) for
Ottoman subjects conducting business in China.
533

The German dominance of the Ottoman army became a source of understandable
concern for the other Powers, especially the British and the French. The Times (London)
asked, in 1914, Have [sic.] the Turkish Government told their Army to expel the 3,000
German officers and men who have audaciously gained control of Turkey and are turning
the country into a German province?
534
However, before the First World War began,
British concern about the German influence in the Ottoman military was sufficient for the
British to permit the latter to reconcile themselves to some friction with Russia to gain
influence in the Ottoman navy. British influence in the Ottoman navy was weak because
Sultan Abdlhamid II intentionally let the Ottoman navy collapse. When the Ottoman
Navy was rebuilt, its highest officers came from the army and were thus oriented towards
Germany. The 1907 Entente made Britain and Russia allies, but the British practice of

531
Germanys Influence at Constantinople, The Living Age 10 June 1899, 723; The
Attitude of Germany, New York Times, 29 August 1903, 2:1; Germany Friendly to
Turkey: The Emperor Reluctant to Assist the Other Powers in a Coercive Move, New
York Times 18 November 1895, 5:3.

532
Germany Needs more Fighting Ships, Chicago Daily Tribune 4 December 1896, 6:6.

533
Turkish Subjects in China: German Protection, Times (London) 18 July 1908, 7:a;
Ottoman Subjects in China: The Portes Oversight, Times (London) 22 July 1908, 9:e.

534
The Betrayal of Islam, Times (London) 3 November 1914, 7:a.

201
supporting the Ottoman Navy angered Russia, which wanted a weak Ottoman Navy in
the Straits. A British official wrote: Turkey means to have a fleet whether we assist or
not[it would be] advantageous that the [assisting] power should be Great Britain and
that the Turkish Fleet should not become Germanized like the Turkish army (emphasis
added).
535
Thus, even at the expense of antagonizing their Entente partner, Russia, the
British sought to strengthen, and, thereby exert influence, in the Ottoman navy.
However, the British recognized that the Ottoman army had a much stronger position in
the Empire, and, thus, even through the assertion of British interests in the Ottoman navy
that the German imperial position (relative to the military) remained superior.
536

Moreover, the British had to constantly fight to prevent German interests in the Ottoman
navy from becoming paramount. As previously mentioned, many of the Ottoman naval
officers transferred from the Ottoman army and were inclined towards Germany, but,
more importantly, the British tried to limit the type and strength of ships sent to the
Ottomans. The Germans proved more willing to sell battleships (and possibly even a
Dreadnought) to the Ottomans.
537

Thus, the imperial relationship between Germany and the Ottoman Empire (in
regards to the military) resulted less from the Ottoman military adopting a German model
for organization and more from the training and association of the Ottoman military
officers (including some of the highest officers in the country) with the Germans, and the

535
Quoted in, Chris B. Rooney, The International Significance of British Naval Missions
to the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1914, Middle Eastern Studies 34 (1998): 8.

536
Ibid., 14-15.

537
Ibid., 5.

202
inclination that the former developed for the latter. This new Ottoman military permitted
the central government to project its influence and authority in the interior provinces, as it
had not been able to do in its previous history. The Germans recognized the importance
of this and began to assert their influence in these interior territories (through railways,
the establishment of banks, agricultural colonies, archaeological discoveries, etc.). As the
Ottoman military came to rely on German trains to transport them and the Ottoman
government directed the location of railway tracks in areas of military significance
instead of commercial (leading to the kilometric guarantees described in Chapter V) the
imperial relationship between Germany and the Ottoman Empire grew.
In addition to the use of military officers and training to assert German political
influence in the Ottoman Empire, the German government employed other less visible
experts to assist in the assertion of German political interests in the Ottoman Empire. The
most famous of these individuals was Max Freiherr von Oppenheim, who has been
characterized as enigmatic and controversial,
538
by a very careful scholar. The enigma
and controversy that scholars associate with Oppenheim developed from his varied
positions in the Ottoman Empire. Oppenheims family was an established banking
family in Cologne
539
and he entered the German civil service in 1883, but soon
thereafter began a career as an Orientalist and an archaeologist.
540
The controversy
around Oppenheim is directed by the question of whether or not he was a spy. He served

538
McKale, The Kaisers Spy, 199.

539
To my knowledge a link between Oppenheims family and German investment in the
Ottoman Empire has not been made, but this could be because scholars have not looked
for it.

540
McKale, The Kaisers Spy, 199.

203
as a German consular official in Egypt (where he spent much of his pre-World War I
time), but he was also a knowledgeable archaeologist with apparently genuine interests in
the scholarship of the field.
541
The controversy that surrounds Oppenheim is whether or
not he was a spy.
542
The importance of Oppenheim is that the German government used
(to varying degrees) the archaeologists and other scholars who went to the Ottoman
Empire to advance their political ambitions. As the subsequent chapter will show, a
close (even official) relationship between archaeologists and the German government
enhanced the concern of the other Powers that individuals such as Oppenheim were
engaged in espionage in the Ottoman Empire. Further, the artifacts that German
archaeologists appropriated from the Ottoman Empire became manifestations of German
imperial influence in the Ottoman Empire.








541
McKale, The Kaisers Spy, 199; and, Max von Oppenheim, Tell Halaf: A New
Culture in Oldest Mesopotamia (London: G.P. Putnam and Sons, 1933); and Max von
Oppenheim, Die Beduinen: Unter mitbearbeitung von Erich Brunlich und Werner
Caskel (Leipzig: O. Harrassowitz, 1939), he has other publications as well.

542
There is a dense history associated with Oppenheim and this dissertation does not
propose to resolve the controversy; however, it does seem that a consensus exist that at
some point he did provide intelligence to the German government. Oppenheim, thus, at
times acted as an intelligence agent for the Germans and other times a Foreign Service
officer, and other times simply an archaeologist.
204

CHAPTER VII
GERMAN CULTURAL IMPERIALISM AND THE CULTURE OF IMPERIALISM IN
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Scholarly attention on the activities of German archaeologists in the Ottoman
Empire has focused, principally, on Max von Oppenheim and Heinrich Schliemann.
Ironically, however, these two iconic symbols of German archaeological interests in the
Ottoman Empire were already anachronisms in the early 1880s. The period in which
archaeological activities could be carried out by a single individual had ebbed (although
Bismarck certainly tried to extend its life
543
) and been replaced by what the most
important historian of German archaeology in the Ottoman Empire has called
Growissenschaft (or, big scholarship, a term borrowed from Theodor Mommsen).
544

This large scale archaeology became one of the most important methods employed by the
Germans in explaining their imperial relationship with the Ottoman Empire to the citizens
of both Germany and the world. Although (for reasons already explained) the Germans
could not formally claim large sections of the Ottoman Empire as their territory,
through the appropriation and display of archaeological artifacts, the Germans illustrated
their imperial presence in the Ottoman Empire. The most significant element in this
effort was the Pergamon Altar, for which a special museum was built in 1899 on Berlins
Museumsinsel. The construction of the Pergamon Museum (hereafter, the Pergamon) on
Museumsinsel provided a political context in which to understand the importance of the

543
Marchand, 86.

544
Ibid., 75.
205
artifacts displayed there. However, to appreciate the imperial significance of the
Pergamon Altar it is necessary to go beyond the political context of construction of the
Pergamon on Museumsinsel and to consider the specific manner in which the Germans
elected to display the Pergamon Altar within the Pergamon Museum itself.
545

The German appropriation and display of archaeological artifacts conformed to
the imperial model established by the British and the French (as previously mentioned,
famous examples included the Elgin Marbles, the Code of Hammurabi, etc.). The
appropriations of artifacts from the Ottoman Empire, by the British and French
(displayed most famously in the Louvre and the British Museum, but also in a myriad of
other smaller museums in these countries, especially the Muse dEgypt in Paris), became
well known and the museums housing these artifacts developed into some of the most
popular destinations for visitors to London and Paris. However, to construct such a
museum, the Germans had to have an obviously magnificent artifact that would justify
the museums development. Although the Germans had secured artifacts from Egypt, by
the time German influence in the Ottoman Empire became recognizable, it was
impossible for the Germans to claim to have influence in Egypt (as it was already under
British control). Further, Germanys early colonial efforts in Africa and the South Pacific
had not produced a major imperial treasure that could be displayed in Berlin (as a
corollary to the imperial treasures displayed in London and Paris). The appropriation of
the Pergamon Altar eventually satisfied the requirement of a magnificent imperial artifact

545
As discussed below, it is not precisely clear that the artifact in the Pergamon Museum
has much coloration to the original historical structure. Instead, it is possible to view the
construction of the Pergamon Altar in Berlin as a statement of German imperial strength
in the Ottoman Empire.

206
around which a museum could be built, and its museum quickly became a national
museum that resembled those of France and Britain.
Although the Pergamon Altar clearly represented Germanys imperial position in
the Ottoman Empire, it will also be argued that a principal reason for the German
enthusiasm for the Pergamon Altar was a desire to overcome the established stigma of the
Germans as artistic barbarians.
546
Many Germans believed that to defeat this perception
they required an obviously magnificent piece of art; the first effort to meet this
requirement was the Cologne Cathedral, the second was the Pergamon Altar. Based on
the bogus claim that the Germans invented Gothic architecture, the Germans completed,
in the late nineteenth-century,
547
the Cologne Cathedral, which many hoped would
become a unifying symbol for the newly formed German state (during the Kaiserreich,
the Germans fiercely debated issues of national identity).
548
However, the long-term
political consequences of Bismarcks Kulturkampf (1871-1878) prohibited a Catholic
church from becoming an important national symbol. The failure of the Cologne
Cathedral to serve as a tool of artistic unification encouraged the Germans to display the
Pergamon Altar as a national treasure. As an answer to this perceived artistic
inadequacy, the display of the Pergamon Altar permitted Berlinto boast that it had

546
Hans Belting, The Germans and their Art: A Troublesome Relationship, trans. Scott
Kleager (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 41.

547
Ibid., 50.

548
Ibid., 46.

207
won this masterpiece of the antique equal only to the Parthenon frieze in London.
549

Consequently, the desire to appropriate and display imperial artifacts (and specifically the
Pergamon Altar) pandered not to a warmongering German public or government seeking
to exhibit its place in the sun. Rather, this appealed to a German sense of artistic
inadequacy as well as temperate German imperial ambitions, which remained well within
the established model of imperialism for the Ottoman Empire.
The complicated and often antagonistic relationship between the German
government (especially under Wilhelm II) and art meant that any public display of art
between 1871 and 1914 constituted a political statement.
550
Thus, the importance
accorded to the Pergamon Altar by the German government requires that the political
ramifications of this monument be considered. Further, the display of imperial objects
from the Ottoman Empire (particularly the Pergamon Altar) also occurred within a
European political context that provided a framework within which the Germans could
announce their imperial presence in the Ottoman Empire, while remaining within the
established model for imperialism in the Ottoman Empire. Although the display of
artifacts in Berlin occurred in the context of nineteenth-century imperialism, as well as
German unification, and an attempt to overcome the stigma of being an artistic
barbarian, the most accomplished historian (of only two or three such historians) of

549
Thomas W. Gaehtgens, The Museum Island in Berlin, in The Formation of National
Collections of Art and Archaeology Studies in the History of Art, vol. 47 (Washington,
D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1996),, 68.

550
Imperial Germany had a sustained debate about what constituted art and the German
government consistently tried to block the introduction of modern art from France,
especially impressionism. Importantly, as noted below, sculpture was seen as one of the
few art forms in the late nineteenth-century not adulterated by in the influence of
modernism.

208
German archaeological efforts in the Ottoman Empire, has concluded that these efforts
were only quasi-imperialist.
551
This chapter intends to show that the German
archaeological efforts in the Ottoman Empire were more than quasi-imperialist, and,
rather, were a recognized component of the established model of imperialism for the
Ottoman Empire.
An important reason that the German display of the Pergamon Altar may be
understood in an imperial context is the familiar relationship between imperialism and
archaeology in the nineteenth-century.
552
In Germany, this relationship became
increasingly evident after the founding of the German Reich (1871). Evidence of this
relationship developed as university trained and government supported scholars replaced
independent archaeologists. Employing the methods of Growissenschaft, the Germans,
with the active support of the German government, excavated some of the most important
archaeological sites in the Ottoman Empire. These new excavations led to the discovery,
appropriation, and display of artifacts such as the Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate
(excavated between 1903 and 1914, but it was not displayed immediately, and thus is not
considered here), as well as artifacts from Olympus and other important ancient sites.
Writing about the excavations at Olympus (the first site to be excavated in this manner) a
contemporary scholar explained the importance of Growissenschaft compared with the
earlier excavations led by single archaeologists: The excavations at Olympia can be

551
Marchand, 93; Marchand eventually refers to German imperialism in the Ottoman
Empire as informal imperialism, see: Marchand, 200.

552
A. Jose Farrujia de la Rosa, Imperialist Archaeology in the Canary Islands: French
and German Studies on Prehistorical Colonization at the End of the 19
th
Century. British
Archaeological Reports, no. 1333 (London: Archaeopress, 2005).

209
called the academically most highly accomplished in the entire history of archaeology;
they established new standards of discipline. The achievement was possible only on the
basis of state support.
553
However, what made the discoveries under this new policy of
government support for archaeological research in the Ottoman Empire significant for a
study of imperialism was that the accomplishments made by the team of archaeologists
became German accomplishments instead of individual accomplishments.
554

What differentiated these larger excavations from those of archaeologists like
Schliemann was that these later excavations occurred with the German governments
approbation, funding, and, most importantly, diplomatic support. Indeed, in 1871, with
the founding of a unified Germany, the Prussian Istitut fr archologische
Korrespondenz became a Reichsinstitut and was simultaneously renamed Der Kaiserlich
Deutschen Archologischen Institut (DAI, although the former was a governmental
institute under the Prussians, the Prussians resisted making it such and its status increased
dramatically under the new Germany).
555
Moreover, its General Secretary, Alexander

553
Gaegtgens, 70-71. It should not be assumed that this policy met with universal
approval in Germany. Many times Bismarck and the Reichstag tried to curb German
support of the archaeological digs. Wilhelm II often circumvented this by providing
money from his own reserves.

554
It would be valuable to know where else the German government supported
archaeological excavations, and possibly where they elected not to support such work.

555
Marchand, 94. Conventionally, historians (only a very few have written about this
institute, and Marchand was the first and the most effective) refer to this as the German
Archaeological Institute or the Deutschen Archologischen Institut; however, I believe it
is important to emphasize the fact that its formal name begins with Kaiserlich (imperial,
referring to Imperial Germany not German imperialism). This emphasis is important to
stress the relationship between the DAI and the German government. See: Alexander
Conze and Paul Schazmann, Mamurt-Kaleh: Ein Tempel der Gttmutter Unweit
Pergamon Publication of the Deutschen Archologischen Instituts vol. 9 (Berlin: Georg
Reimer, 1911).
210
Conze, became an employee of the Auswrtiges Amt (Foreign Office, as Oppenheim
would be some years later).
556
The close relationship between the German government
and archaeology eventually permitted the British to accuse the Germans of using
archaeological expeditions as covers for espionage (most specifically espionage in the
Ottoman Empire); Oppenheim was only the most famous of many such examples.
557

Thus, using the methods of Growissenschaft, the DAI (whose director was an employee
of the German foreign office) became the chief mechanism through which the Germans
discovered and appropriated thousands of pieces of Ottoman, Byzantine, and other
ancient history while asserting their influence in the Ottoman territories.
558

Originally founded in April 1829 as the Istitut fr archologische Korrespondenz,
the DAI included both Leopold von Ranke and K.F. Schinkel as members, and its stated
goal was to gather and make known all archaeologically significant facts and finds.
559

Although the DAI eventually became the most important state mechanism for the
discovery and appropriation of artifacts from Ottoman territories, initially, the
organization limited its interests to Greece and Rome;
560
only after 1871 did the Ottoman

556
Marchand, 101-102.

557
Peter Hopkirk, Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire (New
York: Kodansha International, 1994), 18-19.

558
Although much credit must go to the DAI, there were other methods for appropriating
artifacts. For example, the construction of railways led to the discovery and appropriation
of many artifacts. See, Shaw, 133.

559
Quoted in Marchand, 55.

560
Marchand, 56. There were other organizations, such as the Deutsche-Orient
Gesellschaft (DOG), which although a private organization received support from the
German diplomatic corps. It is worth noting that Georg von Siemans, the director of
211
Empire became an important focus of this organization.
561
However, the DAIs early
finds, even those made in Greece, including the finds in Olympia, failed to find much in
the category most prized by state bureaucrats, the Gymnasium-educated public, and even
the archaeologists themselves: monumental sculpture of the high classical era.
562
This
failure in Greece was eventually compensated for by discoveries in the Asiatic
territories of the Ottoman Empire, especially the three digs at Pergamum (1881-1886,
1901-1915, and 1933-1934)
563
which resulted in the appropriation of the Pergamon Altar,
whose magnificence
564
received international attention.
565


Deutsche Bank was on the board of DOG. See: Blisel, 86. Other private and semi-
private groups (like the DAI) existed, but the DAI was the largest and most important.

561
Even when the artifacts from the Ottoman Empire became the most important artifacts
exhumed by the DAI, the most important artifacts were perceived to be those from
ancient Greece and Rome.

562
Ibid., 87. Instead of monumental sculpture they found 1,328 sculptures, 7,464
bronzes, 2,094 terra-cottas, 696 inscriptions, and 3,035 coins.

563
The Germans had archaeological interests beyond Pergamon, but because the latter
became so important to German imperial interests in the Ottoman Empire it is the focus
of this section. It is worth noting that they also dug in Mesopotamia.

564
As will be explained below, this is somewhat controversial. The German
reconstruction of the Pergamon Altar (although it is not well known, either in scholarship
or in the popular mind) adhered to nineteenth-century German interests more than
historical reality.

565
Lucy M. Mitchell, Sculptures of the Great Pergamon Altar, Century Illustrated
Magazine 25 (1882): 87-100; Charles Brassler, The Pergamon Marbles in the Pergamon
Museum of Berlin, Scientific American 93 (1905): 442-444; L.R. Farnell, The Works
of Pergamon and their Influence, The Journal of Hellenistic Studies 7 (1886): 251-274.
Farnells publication was part of a series of three articles he wrote for this journal, but
outside of the series he published other articles on the discoveries at Pergamon (in this
same journal, and likely published elsewhere as well); Arthur Milchhfer, Die befreiung
des Prometheus: Ein fund aus Pergamon (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1882). As discussed below,
what constituted the Pergamon Altar was a German vision of the Pergamon Altar more
than a historical reality.
212
The Germans began receiving artifacts from the Pergamon digs with Carl
Humanns discoveries (Humann was in the Ottoman Empire to plan and construct
railways) in eighteen-seventy two, but it was not until Humann convinced the DAI and
Alexander Conze (Secretary General of the DAI) to assist him that German activity in
Pergamum became regularized.
566
Although regularized, the Germans intentionally
concealed their discovery from the Ottoman officials, and, thus, secured for themselves a
greater proportion of the artifacts.
567
While the formal digs, under the supervision of
state archaeologists, did not begin until 1881, by 1880, two large fragments of the
Gigantomachia [an important frieze] were on view in the Royal Museums.
568
Although
a permanent
569
museum for the Pergamon artifacts did not exist until 1899, the
Germans found many opportunities to use Pergamon to exhibit their imperial presence in
the Ottoman Empire. One such example occurred at the Berlin Fine Arts Exhibition
(1886), an international exhibition intended to celebrate the centennial of the Berlin
Academy of Arts, where the German presentation of Pergamon overwhelmed the

566
Indeed the earliest segments of the Pergamon Altar did not receive attention in Berlin
and were not even displayed, see: Gaehtgens, 68.

567
Marchand, 94. Ottoman law divided such findings in the following way: one-third of
the artifacts went to each of the following, the state, the group or individual who
discovered them, and the land owner. The Germans (including the German government)
purchased the land to acquire two-thirds of the artifacts, without telling the Ottomans
what the land contained. However, it may not have been necessary for the Germans to do
this as they acquired almost all the artifacts they wished with only limited interference
from the Ottoman government.

568
Ibid., 95. Humann had already sent to Berlin 462 crates weighing 250 tons.

569
As discussed below, the first permanent museum for the Pergamon Altar was later
designated as interim and the construction of the new museum began before the start of
World War I.

213
exhibition. Displayed in the imperial context of a simulated Egyptian temple in the
British section, the Germans exhibited the hugest [sic.] picture in all the exhibition
namely, a panoramic view of Pergamon as it is judged by artists and archaeologists to
have lookedIn front of the [painting of the] Olympian Temple [Pergamon Altar] stands
a tall obelisk, looking like a Cleopatras Needle, inscribed with the wordsto Kaiser
Wilhelm the Victorious.
570
Consequently, although the Germans could not display the
artifacts from Pergamon in a permanent exhibit until 1899, paintings and other substitutes
were presented frequently in an unmistakably imperial context.
571

A significant reason that the German discoveries in the Ottoman Empire (among
them the Pergamon Altar) received such approbation and attention was the manner in
which the Germans eventually displayed them, both before and after the construction of
the Pergamon. Understanding the display of German artifacts from the Ottoman Empire
necessitates an appreciation of the context in which the Germans built the Pergamon. As
discussed previously (Chapter IV), in the post-revolutionary period (1815-1914), state
sponsored museums became increasingly popular throughout Europe. Indeed, these
museums were created to represent and celebrate the nation.
572
These museums
maintained a close relationship to the European monarchs and, in some cases, the new
museums helped fill the spaces left by the power that had been removed from the royal

570
The Berlin Arts Exhibition, Times (London) 29 May 1886, 6:d.

571
As discussed below, the symbolic presentation of artifacts, especially the Pergamon
Altar was important.

572
Gwendolyn Wright, Introduction, 9.

214
prerogative during the revolutionary periods.
573
In Germany, and more specifically
Berlin, these museums populated Spree Island, which eventually received the designation
Museumsinsel. Germanys Museumsinsel ultimately contained five museums: Die Altes
Museum (originally called the Royal Prussian Museum
574
), Die Neues Museum, Die
Nationalgalerie, the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, and the Pergamon Museum (which was
the last one built, started in 1907 and completed in 1930; however, as previously noted,
an interim Pergamon Museum was completed in 1899
575
) (the island also hosts the
Berliner Dom, constructed between 1894 and 1905, which was the official church of the
Hohenzollern family and contained, and does so to this day, the royal familys crypt).
576

Although the Germans began construction of these museums in 1832, three of the five
were completed after Germany unified in 1871. This acceleration of building, between
1871 and 1918, attests to the relationship between these museums and the new German
state, which attempted to use them to bring further unity to the German people and to

573
James Sheehan, Museums in the German Art World: From the End of the Old Regime
to the Rise of Modernism (London: Oxford University Press, 2000), 101. Thus although
monarchs frequently lost political power they often retained authority over cultural and
artistic matters. A reason for this was that it was difficult, in many cases, to determine if
the art belonged to the royal family or to the state.

574
Bilsel, 21.

575
Ibid., 51. The Germans built the interim building (intended to be permanent) between
1897 and 1899 and opened it to the public in 1901, see: Bilsel, 136. Structural integrity
was the reason given for destroying the interim building and raising a new museum;
however the genuine motivation remains unclear, especially since the problems with the
museums integrity resulted from its location. Recent scholarship speculates that the
original museum (the so-called interim building) inadequately presented the Pergamon
artifacts and thus failed to represent the glory of the German Reich, see: Bilsel, 139.

576
A church had been on this location for centuries, but staring in 1894 it became a
central focus of the state. The Berliner Dom, was so large that its height exceeds one-
hundred meters.

215
define German culture. Recent scholarship has emphasized Wilhelm IIs use of
architecture and large building projects, and concluded that the Kaiser sought to
consolidate his authority through building projects.
577
Although this scholarship does
not adequately address the construction of museums, the latters construction, between
1871 and 1918, accords with the authors argument.
The construction of the Pergamon Museum on Museumsinsel is best understood
in the context of the existing four museums on the island. The construction of each of the
four earlier museums had a political significance and was constructed to meet specific
political ends; the Pergamon was no different. The first museum constructed on the
island was the Altes Museum, designed by the famous Prussian architect Frederick
Schinkel. The Germans created the museum specifically to resemble the Musse
Napolon in Paris, which housed imperial artifacts and treasures from the lands
conquered and looted by Napoleon.
578
The popularity of the Parisian museum led to the
construction of museums throughout Europe that glorified the specific state through the

577
Douglas Mark Klahr, The Kaiser Builds in Berlin: Expressing National and Dynastic
Identity in the Early Building Projects of Wilhelm II, (Ph.D. diss. Brown University,
2002), 1 and 13. Also see: Uta Lehnert, Der Kaiser und die Siegesalle. Rclame Royale
(Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1998). Lehnert claims that the Siegesalle was an
advertisement for the dynasty. See: Klahr, 14. This contention fits with the Kaisers
efforts (and those of others) to make Sedan Day a national holiday.

578
Gaehtgens, 55; Andrew McClellan, Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins
of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris (London: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), 198. Both authors emphasize the popularity of the new French museums;
this popularity, as Gaehtgens contends, encouraged monarchs outside of France to being
constructing museums with international artifacts and treasures in them. Also see:
Porterfield, 3-12

216
display of war booty and other such imperial treasures.
579
Indeed, the architecture of
Schinkels museum intentionally mirrored that of the other great European museums,
employing a long frontal colonnade
580
and Classical columns. The second museum
erected on the island arose from the debate about the relationship between art and the
state. Specifically, Frederick Wilhelm IV (1795-1861, ruled 1840-1861) commissioned it
to attest to the fact that the state did not want to relinquish control over the arts.
581

Frederick Wilhelm IV, who participated in the development of the museum, intended for
the museum to be didactic and to emphasize education [for what a Prussian or even a
German should aspire to be] by historic example.
582
The third museum constructed on
Musuemsinsel, Die Nationalgalerie, overtly emphasized its political function in its
famous inscription: Der deutschen Kunst MDCCCLXXI (to German art), which hung
above the figure Germania and an equestrian statue of Kaiser Frederick Wilhelm IV.
Historian James Sheehan contends that the inscription was intended to proclaim its [the
museums] dedication to German art and the link between national art and political
unification,
583
which had been an issue in Germany since the 1848 Revolution.

579
Gaehtgens, 56. Gaehtgens contends that Frederick Wilhelm III finally agreed to
Schinkels plans [for the museum] in 1832 for political reasons. Indeed, he continues
and points out that the thematically similar Alte Pinakothek (Munich) was constructed
around the same time. See: Gaehtgens, 56.

580
Wright, Introduction, 9.

581
Gaehtgens, 56.

582
Ibid., 58.

583
Sheehan, 113. Also see: Franoise Forster-Hahn, Museum moderner Kunst oder
Symbol einer neuen Nation? Zur Grndungsgeschichte der Berliner Nationalgalerie, in
Der deutschen Kunst: Nationalgalerie und Nationale Identitt, 1876-1998 (Amsterdam:
Overseas Publishers Association, 2000), 30-43.
217
Moreover, rather than establishing the museum (Die Nationalgalerie) as an independent
(or even autonomous) entity, its director Max Jordan (1874-1895) reported to the
Kultsministerium, and the Prussian dominated Landeskunstkommission directed
purchases.
584
Construction on the National Gallery began in 1866 (the year of Prussias
victory over Austria in the first war of German unification) and concluded in 1875.
Consequently, appreciating the expectation that the museum would contribute to
Germanys artistic unification, as political unification had just been completed, is
uncomplicated;
585
this expectation existed throughout the Second Reich. The most
famous illustration of the expectation that the museum should contribute to Germanys
artistic unification occurred when the museums second director, Hugo von Tschudi
(1851-1911, administered the museum 1896-1909), attempted to introduce modern
French impressionist art to the museums collection; Wilhelm II forced him to resign.
586

Karl Scheffler, in 1921, wrote The Nationalgalerie served dynastic interests quite
intentionally,
587
by presenting an oppressive mass of bombastic battle scenes, which

584
Sheehan, 113.

585
The problem of German particularism is well known and treated thoroughly by
Mack Walker. See: Mack Walker, German Home Towns, Community, State, and
General Estate, 1648-1871 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971); for a discussion of
the questions relating to the artistic unification of Germany, see: Belting.

586
Ibid. There are other reasons for the infamous Tschudi Affair, and a solid
scholarship exists on it. The role of modernism in German art and politics, which
contributed to this, is discussed below. For more on Tschudi, see: Peter Paret, The
Tschudi Affair, The Journal of Modern History 53 (1981): 589-618.

587
Quoted in Gaehtgens, 60-61.

218
glorified German military victories and history.
588
Consequently, the construction of
museums on Museumsinsel occurred within a political context, and the Pergamon
Museum
589
was not an exception.
Although the development of Museumsinsel began during the period between the
conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars and the unification of Germany, it accelerated after
1871; indeed (as previously mentioned), it began its most intense period of construction
after 1871, with three of its five museums being completed following German political
unification. Although the pace of development increased, the relationship between the
museums and the government remained the same, museums (especially those on
Museumsinsel) were political tools. Under the Kaiserreich, the museums were to reflect
the status of the empire, [and] to testify to the empires global and imperial claims;
590

the Pergamon fit within this requirementindeed it did so better than any of the other
museums. The German government could have constructed a museum of antiquities,

588
Franoise Forster-Hahn, Shrine of Art of Signature of a New Nation? The National
Gallery(ies) in Berlin, 1848-1968, in The Formation of National Collections of Art and
Archaeology Studies in the History of Art, vol. 47 (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery
of Art, 1996), 93.

589
The history of the building is interesting as an interim building was constructed and
then replaced by a permanent structure, and it took until 1930 to complete the process,
but a Pergamon Museum existed no later than 1899, see: Gaehtgens, 65 and Marchand
288. The fourth museum opened on Museumsinsel, the Kaiser Friedrich Museum (1904)
opened with a special collection of Oriental art given to the Kaiser by the Sultan.
Wilhelm II hoped that this museum would encourage young German artists to look to the
past (especially the classical period) for inspiration and training, see: Opening of the
Emperor Frederick Museum: The Kaiser on Modern German Art, Times (London), 19
October 1904, 3:d-e. The issues of German modern art are discussed (briefly) below.

590
Gaehtgens, 64. Indeed the politics of art and display became so important that the
museums situated on Museumsinsel bickered with each other regarding construction and
display. This became known as the Museums War, see: Marchand, 288-289.

219
ethnography (which was constructed in Berlin, but importantly not on Museumsinsel), or
even of Egyptian artifacts, which were held in the Neues Museum; however, it decided, in
1897, the year before the Kaiser made his first trip to the Ottoman Empire, to build a
museum dedicated to the Pergamon Altar
591
and the recently established Department of
Islamic Artalso referred to as the Museum of Islamic Art, although it has been housed
within the Bode Museum and the Pergamon and it never stood alone.
592
The decision to
emphasize the German involvement in the Ottoman Empire went beyond a German belief
in the magnificence of the Pergamon Altaralthough that was a contributing factor.
Rather, the decision to construct a museum around the Pergamon Altar represented a
public statement of German imperialism in the Ottoman territories as well as German
artistic achievement (through the altars acquisition and display). However, it also
contributed to the internal unification of Germany by providing a symbol (or tradition)
that the Germans could see as a visible manifestation of German artistic
accomplishment.
593

The relationship between the Pergamon Altar and German involvement in the
Ottoman Empire is illuminated not only by the particular space on Museumsinsel that
Pergamon Museum, in its varied forms, occupied, but also by the physical structure of the

591
As mentioned earlier, the Pergamon Museum was not one building but rather a
succession of buildings beginning with what is presently referred to as the interim
building and concluding in 1907 with the present museum, see: Gaehtgens, 65 and
Marchand, 289-290.

592
State Museums of Berlin Prussian Cultural Property, Museum of Islamic Art, trans. R.
Hughes Barnes (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2003), 1.

593
The completion of the Cologne Cathedral failed in this purpose because of the
Kulturkampf. Clearly, a Catholic church, regardless of its magnificence could not
become a unifying symbol during this period of persecution. See: Belting, 46-47.

220
Pergamon Altar itself. The reconstruction and display of the Pergamon Altar is one of
the most significant elements that permits an imperial message to be discerned from the
language of display. A significant reason that the specific display of the Pergamon Altar
conveys imperialism is that the Germans did not uncover the Pergamon Altar as a whole,
nor could they have. Rather the Germans reconstructed the altar, from ruins that had
been manipulated (eleven centuries earlier) into a new structure, to fit nineteenth-century
German imperial ambitions. Originally, the last Attalid king (who died in 133 B.C.)
commissioned the altar,
594
but it eventually fell into ruin, and, by the eighth-century A.D.,
its ruins had been incorporated into a Byzantine wall,
595
where they remained for eleven
centuries. Thus, when the Germans discovered the Pergamon Altar, it was not as a
unified whole or even an unadulterated ruin; rather they discovered the Pergamon
Altar in the form of a Byzantine wall. Consequently, the location of the ruins
discovered by the German archaeologists did not provide guidance for the altars
reconstruction. Further, in reconstructing the altar, the Germans had almost no direction
from ancient literature, which provides modern scholars with only one certain reference;
it reads: At Pergamon is a great marble altar, forty feet in height with colossal sculpture.
It also contains the battle of the gods and the Giants.
596
Moreover, although the

594
Renee Dreyfus and Ellen Schraudolph (eds.), Pergamon: The Telephos Frieze from the
Great Altar (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1996), 13.

595
Bilsel, 119.

596
Dreyfus, 11, this quote comes from a Roman citizen, Lucius Ampelius, who described
the altar in his book: Liber Memorialis.

221
Pergamon Altar is conventionally presented as an altar dedicated to Zeus,
597
scholars
cannot even be certain that the altar was used for the worship of gods (much less any
specific god).
598
Consequently, a recent scholar concluded that based on the condition of
the ruins when the Germans discovered them, and the limited secondary knowledge
available to scholars, that even an assessment of its [the Pergamon Altar] date, program,
and [principal] function (or functions) [is]deeply problematic.
599
Thus, beyond the
fact that the ruins excavated from a Byzantine wall originated from an altar and a
consensus on the general dimensions of the structure, modern scholars cannot, with
certainty, support any other claims. In spite of this uncertainty (which is rarely addressed
by scholars, even the most careful and precise scholars), newspapers, journals, books, and
other publications make emphatic claims about the function and appearance of the altar
(among other things, like the idea that the present altar resembles the ancient one and that
the alter was indeed dedicated to Zeus).
600

An important reason for the broadly accepted belief that the structure presented in
the Pergamonsaal (Pergamon Hall, the actual room in which the altar is displayed) was

597
Museum Festival in Berlin: Altar of Zeus on View, Times (London), 6 October
1930, 8:e. There are many such examples.

598
Stewart points out that the Latin word ara does not necessarily mean religious altar, it
could also be for hero-worship, see: Stewart, 32.

599
Andrew Stewart, Pergamo Ara Marmorea Magna: On the Date, Reconstruction, and
Functions of the Great Altar of Pergamon, in From Pergamon to Sperlonga: Sculpture
and Context, eds. Nancy T. de Grummond and Brunilde S. Ridgway (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2000), 32.

600
Museum Festival in Berlin: Altar of Zeus on View, Times (London), 6 October
1930, 8:e; Antonio Paolucci, Great Museums of Europe: The Dream of the Universal
Museum (Milan: Skira, 2002), 178.

222
an altar dedicated to Zeus, and that it resembles the original structure, is that the there has
never been any broad public indication to the contrary. This intentional deception is
accentuated by the central presentation of Zeus and Athena on the modern version of the
Pergamon Altar, which attentive scholars concur, is inaccurate.
601
Although the German
architects who constructed the Pergamon Altar in Berlin placed these depictions (Zeus
and Athena) in the most prominent location on the monument, they were most likely
originally on the monuments eastern faade (the present representation of the Pergamon
Altar has only one faade).
602
Furthermore, while the presentation of the altar gives
(and gave, when speaking of its earlier exhibition) the viewer the perception that the
display includes the whole altar, the Pergamon Museum contains no more than a
representation of a third of the original structure. Moreover, the structure that is
displayed as the Pergamon Altar (which visitors are encouraged to touch and climb on)
is an amalgamation of original pieces and elements added (without distinction from the
originals) by nineteenth-century German architects. Among the many elements added by
the Germans is the staircase that comprises a large proportion of the center of the
altar.
603
Thus, it cannot be claimed that the nineteenth-century elements in the altar
are peripheral; rather, they provide the altar with its essential shape and structure. Not
only did the Germans (as opposed to the original or even Byzantine artists) determine the

601
Very few scholars have considered this. The statement attentive scholars should not
indicate that a large number of scholars have made this claim. Rather most scholars
accept the Pergamon Altar, as it is presently presented, as a reasonably accurate
representation of the original, both in appearance and function.

602
Bilsel, 114 and 127.

603
Bilsel, 108. There other examples; indeed it seems most of the Altars principal
structure was built in the nineteenth-century.

223
location of specific statues and friezes without considering their original placement (such
as those of Zeus and Athena), but the Germans also constructed the entire present form of
the Pergamon Alter to fit their nineteenth-century imperial ambitions, desires,
perceptions, and goals.
604
That the whole architecture of the monument came from
nineteenth-century German architects and museum curators (and German imperial
desires) is evident by recognizing that radically different models were proposed as a
basis for the nineteenth-century reconstruction of the altar.
605

The German motivation for the reconstruction and display of the Pergamon Altar,
was not historical fidelity, rather, the principal German intention in the decision to
display the Pergamon Altar as they did was imperialism. The reconstruction of the
altar in the most grandiose manner (both in its principal structure and the central
depiction of gods like Zeus and Athena) was done to emphasize the magnificence of this
monument and, thus, the German accomplishment in recovering it. Further, by
appropriating such an important structure from the Ottoman Empire, the Germans
illustrated their imperial position. This display of imperialism fit within both the
established model for imperialism in the Ottoman Empire and the broader German policy
of Kulturpolitik towards the Ottoman Empire. The appropriation of the ruins that

604
The difficult question that has not been answered, and this dissertation does not fully
do, is to what degree did the Germans understand this or care. It must have been well
understood by those who discovered and reconstructed the monument that there was no
way to determine its original appearance, but how widely know that fact was is very
uncertain.

605
Bilsel, 129-130 and 132. For an example of the German perception of Pergamon, see:
Pergamon: Plne der Unterstadt und des Stadtberges, in Altertmer von Pergamon, vol.
9 (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1914). This is a map of Pergamon, and it is less important than
the series of maps that it is a part of.

224
composed the Pergamon Altar did not conflict with the policy of Kulturpolitik, because
the Germans received official permission to excavate the site where they discovered the
altar and they generally complied with the Ottoman laws on antiquities.
606
However,
German influence in the Ottoman government permitted the Germans to accept not only
sculpture andjewelry
607
but to appropriate the entire altar without considering
Ottoman objections.
In spite of its obvious imperial appeal, the Pergamon Altar was more than an
effort to illustrate German imperialism to the German people and the world; it was also a
symbol of German accomplishment that contributed to the unification of the newly
formed country. Historian Eric Hobsbawm has explained the importance of such
invented traditions to the development of a modern state, and the Pergamon Altar
conforms to his model.
608
Importantly, the Germans were not the only Power to use
Ottoman artifacts in such a manner. The placement of the Luxor Obelisk at the center of
Pariss most important urban axis, the Place de la Concorde
609
in 1836 (appropriated in

606
Although the Germans received permission, they did not (as previously noted) disclose
the significance of their discovery to the Ottoman government, nor did they adhere to
Ottoman law regarding the appropriation of antiquities. Further, German influence in the
Empire (including the visit of the Kaiser) permitted them to appropriate the treasures
without significant interference from the government.

607
Gaehtgens, 71-72. According to the established Ottoman law on the recovery of
antiquities, some of the artifacts would have to remain in the Ottoman Empire, especially
if the artifacts were of particular importance. The Germans successfully sought to
appropriate the whole of the altar.

608
Michael R. Orwicz, Nationalism and Representation, in Theory, in Nationalism and
French Visual Culture, 1870-1914 (eds.), June Hargrove and Neil McWilliam, in Studies
in the History of Art, vol. 68 (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2005), 21.

609
Todd Porterfield, The Allure of Empire: Art in the Service of French Imperialism,
1798-1836 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 13 and 104. Recall that the
225
1831) provides an example of how other imperial Powers used Ottoman artifacts
didactically, and, eventually, created tradition while asserting their imperial presence in
Ottoman territories. Recent historical literature has emphasized this point by contending
that the placement of the Luxor Obelisk [at] the center of Pariss most important urban
axis was to substitute Frances revolutionary passion with a national passion
founded on imperial expansion in the East.
610
Thus, the German display of the
Pergamon Altar conformed to the established model for imperialism in the Ottoman
Empire. Consequently, the specific display of the Pergamon Altar emphasized German
imperialism and national accomplishment (all the more so because of the specific manner
in which the Germans constructed it), without upsetting the European balance of power.
However, in spite of the imperial nature of German activity in the Ottoman
Empire, Edward Said famously asserted that Germany did not have a protracted,
sustained national interest in the Orient, and thus [had] no Orientalism of a politically
motivated sort (emphasis original).
611
As previously explained (Chapter IV), Saids
principal contention was that a tradition of Oriental scholarship (be it literature, scholarly
books, paintings, or some combination there of), established a basis for the assertion of
imperialism and then colonialism in the foreign territory. He argued that while the main
battle in imperialism is over land, of coursewhen it came to who owned the land, who

French (and the Russians), until the signing of the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial
Convention (1836) were the strongest imperial powers in the Ottoman Empire.

610
Ibid., 15.

611
Said, Orientalism, 19. Said limited his consideration, almost exclusively, to the period
of the nineteenth-century before Germany existed, while that limitation explains Saids
contention, it does not excuse later scholars from recognizing German interests in the
Ottoman Empire.
226
had the right to settle and work on it, who kept it going, who won it back and who now
plans its futurethese issues were reflected, contested, and even for a time decided in
Oriental scholarship.
612
Said eventually conceded a German intellectual and scholarly
interest in the Ottoman Empire, but maintained his contention that the Germans failed to
connect this to an imperial policy. This dissertation has exposed a national German
interest in expanding into the Ottoman Empire, which permitted the Germans (as well as
other European Powers) to assert themselves into the Ottoman territories without
challenging the established balance of power. This assertion of German national interests
in the Ottoman Empire answers the question that scholars have asked about Said and
German orientialism (and the point that Said never conceded). Can this [German]
tradition of scholarship be assessed in a way that productively connects it to histories of
[German] imperialism and the exercise of power?
613
Thus, the remaining task here is
not to show the German national interest in the Ottoman Empire (which I hope was
shown in Chapters V, VI, and VII), but rather to provide a minimal context in which to
appreciate (the already well recognized) German scholarly and artistic interest in the
Ottoman Empire.
614


612
Said, Culture and Imperialism, xxii-xiii; Said is principally discussing literature, but
his argument could (and has been) be applied to paintings or other forms of expression.

613
Jennifer Jenkins, German Orientalism: Introduction, Comparative Studies of South
Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24 (2004): 97.

614
The German artistic interest in the Ottoman Empire is reasonably well documented and
certainly the least contentious part of Saids assessment of German orientalism.
Nevertheless, it is worth introducing some aspect of the German artistic and intellectual
interest in the Ottoman Empire.

227
The use of visual art to explain the German imperial position in the Ottoman
Empire was particularly effective due to the contemporary conflicts that existed between
the German government and the art world (especially under Wilhelm II).
615
Wilhelm
attached a special significance to the use of classical art (such as the Pergamon Altar)
because he considered it a model for the type of art the Germans should be producing.
For example, in 1901, Wilhelm II made a sweeping claim of the supremacy and
authorityof classical forms of art.
616
In this speech, Wilhelm exhibited his preference
for classical art and, particularly for sculpture, which he considered one of the last
unpolluted forms of artistic expression. Contemporaries contended artistic expression
had been polluted by modernism, and impressionism, which he and others considered
particularly un-German.
617
Thus, the display of the Pergamon Altar in Germany had
multiple functions. It explained the imperial relationship between Germany and the
Ottoman Empire, which became the model that the Kaiser hoped future German artists
would adopt, and it facilitated the unification of the German state through the invention
of tradition. However, it accomplished all of this without upsetting the European
balance of power, because the Germans conformed to the model of imperialism

615
For a discussion of the trends and events influencing German art in the Wilhelmine
period, see: Peter Paret, German Encounters with Modernism, 1840-1945 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2001), 65-91 (hereafter cited as Paret, German Encounters
with Modernism).

616
The Kaisers Speech on Art, Times (London) 24 December 1901, 3:f. Wilhelm
continued to claim that there were other important examples of art, which included the
sublime Germanic genius of Rembrandt.

617
Belting, 61-68. Also see: Paret, German Encounters with Modernism. Most of Parets
book is germane, but his discussion of the increasingly strong influence of modernism
and foreign art in the post-1888 period is especially informative. See: Paret, German
Encounters with Modernism, 65-66.

228
established for the Ottoman Empire. Consequently, Imperial Germanys developing
Kunstpolitik emphasized the German connection to classical art (most notably the
Pergamon Altar) and rejected influences from modern art.
Although Germany never established a formal colonial relationship with the
Ottoman Empire, German artists and writers illustrated the imperial relationship between
the two countries for the German people. This mirrored the use of art in other European
countries to explain (and even prepare the country for) an imperial relationship with the
Ottoman Empire (before the country formally became involved in imperialism there).
618

The visual representations of the Ottoman Empire in Germany consisted of both paintings
and photographs.
619
Among the most notable painters to embrace themes from the
Ottoman Empire were August Macke (1887-1914, killed in the First World War) and
Paul Klee (1879-1940), who traveled together in Tunisia before the start of the First
World War (Klee also spent time in Egypt and other Ottoman territories before the war).
These artists were part of the German artistic movement der Blaue Reiter, one of the
principal proponents of German Expressionism (die Brcke is the other). However,
depictions of the Ottoman Empire were not the private reserve of modernist artists.
Wilhelm Gentz, as early as 1876, painted a conventional portrait of Crown Prince
Fredericks 1869 visit to Jerusalem (a visit made during his trip to celebrate the opening
of the Suez Canal); importantly, Gentz received support for his work from the new

618
Porterfield, 4. Although this quote was written about France the same is true of
Germany and of Britain.

619
This dissertation does not cover photography, but for more information, see: Annetta
Alexandridis and Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer, Archologie der Photographie: Bilder aus der
Photothek der Antikensammlung, (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2004).
229
German state.
620
Thus, through the works of German Expressionist painters, as well as
court portraits, the German population began to acquire the familiarity with the Ottoman
Empire that Said considered essential to the eventual establishment of imperialism.
Although the works completed by these artists (especially Klee and Macke, Gentz
might be an exception) cannot be specifically connected to an overt assertion for German
imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, these works contributed to an increased awareness of
German influence in the Ottoman Empire (which Said considered essential). This art,
both in Germany and in other European countries, created an increased awareness that
permitted European artists to provide [a] rational for the imperial project before their
specific government established a formal imperial or colonial presence.
621
Thus,
although specific domestic incidents (such as the protection of the Suez Canal, and the
overland route) provoked European governments to establish a formal imperial or
colonial presence,
622
artists and their works created the sense that it [imperialism in the
Ottoman Empire] was a national endeavor.
623
Although Macke spent only a short time
in the Ottoman territories, his paintings, including Turkish Garden and Turkish Garden
Two, as well as the thirty-seven watercolors that he produced, contributed to the idea that
Germany had an imperial or colonial presence in the Ottoman Empire.

620
Forster-Hahn, 91-92.

621
Porterfield, 4.

622
A point that supports Robinson and Gallaghers free trade of imperialism.

623
Porterfield, 4-5. Porterfield contends that the development of Weberian nationalism in
Europe received a critical contribution from intellectuals and in particular artists. This
nationalism encouraged by intellectuals permitted isolated events to move towards formal
imperialism or colonialism because the country had possessed an inclination towards
imperialism because of the work of artists.

230
One way in which Macke presented a claim for German imperialism in the
Ottoman Empire was through the use of the depiction of paradise, in which the
traditional iconography of Adam and Eve in Eden was transformed to an exotic Arab
setting and to a modern urban paradise.
624
The connection between imperialism and the
idea of the imperial territory being a paradise originated in the earliest of European
colonial and imperial endeavors and should require no further explanation, except to
emphasize the conventionality of German imperialism. Consequently, while the art of
Klee, Macke, and the other German expressionists does not make an overt statement for
German imperial expansion into the Ottoman Empire, it contributed to the intellectual
context that Said considered essential to the establishment of formal imperialism.
Much as the paintings and photographs of the Ottoman Empire contributed to the
familiarity with the imperial territory that eventually facilitated the establishment of
imperialism and colonialism,
625
nineteenth-century German literature (especially between
1870 and 1908) also introduced the Ottoman Empire to the German people. Scholars
have only rarely considered German orientalist texts in the context of German
imperialism in the Ottoman Empire.
626
Indeed, the whole field of German orientalist

624
Janice Mary McCullagh, August Macke and the Vision of Paradise: An Iconographic
Analysis, (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1980), vi.

625
Although the Germans never established a formal imperial or colonial presence in the
Ottoman Empire, this was due to the international circumstances. It is argued that had
the Germans won the First World War, they would have acted much as the French and
British and established a stronger position in the former Ottoman territories. However,
this failure to establish formal colonialism and imperialism does not (as previously
argued) diminish the importance of the German artists in the Ottoman Empire, and the
formers contribution to any eventual imperial or colonial activity.

626
Nina Berman, Orientalism, Imperialism, and Nationalism: Karl Mays Orientzyklus,
in The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonization and its Legacy eds. Sara
231
literature has just begun to develop. A particularly promising genre, the
Professorenromane (or more specifically, archologischer Professorenromane,
archaeological scholarly novel, which often used copious footnotes in spite of the fact
that the novels plot was fictional), may provide this field with an important perspective
on German intentions in the Ottoman Empire.
627
Indeed, German interest in the Ottoman
Empire existed in both scholarly and literary spheres. The nineteenth-century German
Oriental scholars surpassed all other European Orientalists [through] their valuable
contributions to Arabic and Islamic Studies.
628

Without attempting to review the entirety of German orientalist literature, this
dissertation briefly considers the work of one author, Karl May,
629
and contends that
Mays work accords with the model for imperialism established by the British and
explained by Said. Although the dissertation treats only Karl May, his enormous

Friedrichsmeyer, Sara Lennox, and Susanne Zantop (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1998), 51.

627
Kathrin Maurer, Representing History: Literary Realism and Historicist Prose in
Nineteenth-Century Germany, (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2002), 113. This
genre has not considered these books in relation to the Ottoman Empire yet.

628
Serajul Haque, German Contribution to Arabic and Islamic Studies, Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bangladesh 19 (1974): 35. These contributions included things like
translations of the Koran but also the development of departments and professorships in
Oriental Studies. Further, scholars began to learn and teach Arabic, Persian, and other
such languages. Haques article provides a succinct list of the major German Orientalists
in the nineteenth-century.

629
Karl May was one of Germanys most widely read authors. See: Colleen Cook,
Germanys Wild West Author: A Researchers guide to Karl May, German Studies
Review 5 (1982): 67-82. Other authors could be considered here including: Wilhelm
Freytag and Gustav Flgel, see: Haque, 33-47.

232
popularity and the attention devoted to his works makes him one of the most important
conduits of information about the Ottoman Empire.
Karl May wrote no less than five novels (some of which are six volumes long)
situated in the Ottoman Empire, these include: Durch das wilde Kurdistan, Von Baghdad
nach Stambul, In den Schluchten des Balkans, Durch das Land der Skiperaten and
Orientzyklus (which he originally published, significantly, in serial form in Deutscher
Hausschatz in Wort und Bild, between 1881 and 1888).
630
Although a specific study of
Mays books is beyond the scope of this dissertation, it is important to note some of the
themes he addressed in his works. Among the ideas addressed by May was the role of
German arms and military instruction in the Ottoman Empire; specifically, he wrote of
the superiority of German weapons (meaning the Krupp weapons) and the sloppiness of
Ottoman soldiers, whose lines were not straight.
631
His novels also addressed the reality
of the Turks as the Sick man of Europe, and sometimes proposed that Germany (in
some unspecified way) would provide the Ottoman Empire with its salvation.
632
Lastly,
recent scholars have used post-colonial theories to contend that May transferred [the
heterosexual model of domination and submission] onto the relationship between Europe
and the Middle East: Kara Ben Nemsi [the German protagonist in Mays Orientzyklus] as
the representative of Europe and Halef [an Arab] as the representative of the Middle East

630
Berman, 55; and Nedret Kuran, The Image of the Turk in Karl Mays Novel Von
Baghdad nach Stambul, Journal of Mediterranean Studies 5 (1995): 241.

631
Berman, 62 and 64.

632
Kuran, 243.

233
personify[ing ] the colonial paradigm.
633
Thus, through even this brief consideration of
one of nineteenth-century Germanys most popular authors, it is possible to appreciate
the presence and significance of the Ottoman Empire to German literature
Consequently, through the use of visual arts and literature, the German artistic
community contributed to the imperial relationship between Germany and the Ottoman
Empire. These examples of the artistic depiction of the Ottoman Empire, including the
Pergamon Altar, Expressionist art, and the work of Karl May placed the Ottoman Empire
within many of the periods most significant and popular artistic movements. Although
Said has acknowledged the German cultural interest in the Ottoman Empire, it is worth
emphasizing its breadth. Further, this contribution accorded with the model of
imperialism developed by the British, which permitted the Germans to expand into the
Ottoman Empire without upsetting the European balance of power.











633
Burman, 59.
234

CHAPTER VIII

CONCLUSION

Article one hundred and fifty five of the Treaty of Versailles, which required
Germany to adhere to all decisions made by the victorious powers regarding Turkey and
Bulgaria, followed articles obliging Germany to surrender its colonial territories (articles
119-127). Although the subsequent articles in the Treaty obviously required Germany to
surrender its formal colonies, these articles also required the Germans to relinquish their
territory in China (articles 128-134), influence in Morocco (articles 141-146), and to
recognize British authority in Egypt (articles 148-154). Indeed, the section of the
Versailles Treaty that included article 155 (the article concerning German-Ottoman
relations) specifically concerned German colonial and imperial influence. While other
articles in the treaty regulated affairs between the Ottoman Empire and Germany
(specifically those regarding the return of specific artifacts, article 246, and the articles
addressing the Portes outstanding debts, articles 231-242), the inclusion of Turkey in the
section devoted to German colonial territories is significant. While Germany never had
formal colonial territories in the Ottoman Empire, through the model of imperialism
conceived by the British in the mid-nineteenth-century, the Germans had a recognized
and effective imperial presence in the Ottoman Empire for more than twenty-five years.
Regrettably, historians have failed to consider German imperial interests beyond
the fact that the Germans failed to establish colonies in the Ottoman Empire, and this
omission has created a distortion in the historiography of German
imperialism/colonialism. The German decision not to establish formal colonies accorded
with the principles of imperialism for the late nineteenth-century. Indeed, both the
235
Russian control of the Greater Bulgaria (however brief) and the British occupation and
control of Egypt (between 1882 and 1914) emphasize the Powers reluctance to establish
formal colonies in the Ottoman territories (an argument could be made that European
imperial activity in China may also fit this principle). Although French activity in North
Africa and Syria deviated from this pattern, the general reluctance to establish colonies
(and even more so colonial empires) is of central importance in understanding
international relations between 1880 and 1914.
634
Thus, that the Germans sought to
extend their influence into the Ottoman Empire without the formal establishment of
colonies should not preclude German activity in the Ottoman Empire from being
considered in the imperial historiography of Imperial Germany.
The inclusion of the Ottoman Empire in the historiography of German
imperialism/colonialism has significant implications for the historiography of German
imperialism/colonialism as well as German foreign policy. The most important factor in
this consideration is the idea that German imperialism in the Ottoman Empire was quite
moderate and well within the established pattern of imperialism. At no point in the
period between 1880 and 1908 did the Germans attempt to repudiate the established
model of imperialism by seeking colonies or a more significant imperial influence.
Indeed, in many circumstances, the Germans never surpassed the British or the French
(and in other circumstances they surpassed one but not the other), content to be the
second largest lender or trading partner. When the Germans did finally surpass the

634
One of the complicating issues in this consideration is that the Powers did establish
colonies. The establishment of German colonies in the Pacific and in South-west Africa
is an example. However, most of the colonies established between 1880 and 1914 had
little strategic importance. At the minimum, it must be recognized that the establishment
of formal colonies was no longer the only way in which to assert influence.
236
British or the French in specific aspects of Ottoman imperialism, it was often because the
former elected to decrease their involvement in Ottoman affairs more than a German
desire to increase their participation. The most important exceptions to this are Kaiser
Wilhelms 1898 visit to Constantinople and the German appropriation of Ottoman
artifacts. Beyond these two activities, the Germans usually remained behind either the
British or the French. Consequently, German imperial activity in the Ottoman Empire
cannot be considered militaristic or unusually aggressive. Rather, as this dissertation has
contended, the German imperialism in the Ottoman Empire may even be characterized as
tepid.
The model of imperialism developed for the Ottoman Empire originated out of a
confluence of European balance of power politics and British concerns to maintain access
to India. Initially, this model developed following the invention of steam ships that could
travel reliably and safely in the Red Sea. The establishment of an oceanic route from
London to India that did not require the circumnavigation of Africa made access to Suez,
Morocco, and Bab el Mandeb (the strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden) a
national strategic concern for Britain. However, the British had little interest in formally
colonizing (which would have greatly increased their responsibility to these areas and
might have provoked the other European Powers to object to British expansion) these
areas.
635
Rather, the British merely established themselves as the hegemonic imperial
power in the strategic territory and protected their influence there. This policy
emphasized regional stability and was predicated on the continued existence of the

635
Gibraltar was an exception to this. Recall that under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), the
British gained access to Gibraltar in perpetuity from the Spanish. However, the British
only included it in their Empire in 1830 (just as the development of steam ships made
travel in the Red Sea feasible and thus the overland route became a possibility).
237
Ottoman government. The British predicated their policy on the continued existence of
the Ottoman government, because, if the Ottoman government fell, then it was probable
that the competing European interests in the Ottoman territories would threaten the
strategic positions that the British already held.
The British (and indeed the other Powers) had credible reasons to believe that the
Ottoman government might collapse (or be destroyed). Such a circumstance would have
threatened the newly established overland route, and British security interests. Thus, it
became a British policy, between 1856 and 1888, to defend the governmental and
territorial (particularly the principal Asiatic areas of the Ottoman Empire) integrity of the
Ottoman Empire. While the Ottoman Empire was already frequently considered to be
moribund by the 1830s,
636
the treaty of Hnkir skelesi (1833) (between the Ottomans
and the Russians) intensified concern about the future of the Empire, as the treaty
provided the Russians a pretext to occupy Constantinople. This treaty coincided with
intensified British interest in Ottoman territories (for the establishment of the overland
route), and thus was a (perhaps the) critical component in the development of the British
imperial system for the Ottoman Empire. The British preference for imperial influence in
Suez and along the Red Sea represented a strategic decision not to establish a precedent
that the other European Powers (most specifically Russia) might use to occupy, and
partition, the Ottoman territories. Consequently, the model of imperialism developed by
the British, and adopted by the Germans, originated out of a need to secure strategic
locations within the Ottoman Empire without providing a pretext for the other European

636
Earlier chapters provided references that indicated that the European Powers
developed no less than two-hundred (and likely many, many more) contingencies and
plans for the division of the Ottoman territories.
238
Powers (originally Russia) to seize colonies in the principal territories of the Ottoman
Empire. From 1838 until 1908, this model permitted the British, and then the Germans,
to become important imperial powers in the Ottoman Empire (a fact well recognized in
Ottoman and Turkish historiography, as mentioned below) without upsetting the
European balance of power.
The model for the assertion of imperialism in the Ottoman Empire (as developed
by the British) allowed the imperial power to assert themselves in the Empires
economic, political, cultural, and military affairs without providing the other European
Powers a pretext to seize Ottoman territories. This influence in the Empire eventually
encouraged the European Powers (chiefly Britain and then Germany) to guarantee the
integrity of the Ottoman territories. The maintenance of the Empires territorial and
governmental integrity was essential to the British model because, any colonization (by
other Powers) in the principal territories of the Ottoman Empire would threaten the
established British (and after 1880, the German) position. The reason why such a
partition represented a threat to the Powers (Britain and then Germany) was that: 1) the
British had the territories they sought and thus any conflict over the Ottoman Empire
could only reduce their position and, 2) the Germans had a profitable and important
relationship with the Ottoman Empire and a war could only reduce that influence. Thus,
the model of imperialism for the Ottoman Empire permitted both Germany and Britain to
maintain their positions within the Empire without provoking the other European Powers.
Although British activity in the Ottoman Empire (between 1838 and 1888) did not
resemble conventional British imperialism, scholars have subsequently recognized this
activity as imperial. One (conservative) test for the presence of British imperialism is
239
John Gallagher and Ronald Robinsons Imperialism of Free Trade. Although this test has
been criticized, it remains a reliable measure of imperial activity. Although previously
mentioned, it is worth reconsidering the components of this test, which include:
1) The exertion of power or diplomacy to impose and sustain free trading conditions
on another society against its will;
2) the exertion of capital or commercial attraction to bend economic organization
and direction of growth in directions complementary to the needs and surpluses of
the expanding economy;
3) the exertion of capital and commercial attraction directly upon foreign
governments to influence them toward cooperation and alliance with the
expanding country;
4) the direct intervention or influence of the export-import sector interests upon the
politics of the receiving country in the direction of collaboration and political-
economic alliance with the expanding power;
5) the taking over by European bankers and merchants of sectors of non-European
domestic economies under cover of imposed free trade without accompaniment of
large capital or export inputs from Europe, as in China.
637


Robinson and Gallagher envisioned one of these aspects to be sufficient to show imperial
activity; however, in the case of the British (and later the Germans) in the Ottoman
Empire, at least four of these were present. Further, while most scholars expect for
colonialism to precede imperialism, Edward Said has argued that, in the Middle East,
imperialism preceded colonialism. However, the imperial incubation period, which
ended after the First World War, has confused scholars who anticipate a colonial
presence in Ottoman territories as a test for German imperialism.
Although the historiography of German colonialism does not include a treatment
of German relations with the Ottoman Empire, Turkish and Ottoman historiography
readily recognizes the imperial influence of all the Great Powers, including Germany.
The historiography of Turkey contains many references to the influence of the European

637
Louis, 3-5.

240
Powers in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. Some representative statements from
this Turkish historiography include the following: At this time, their purpose [the
Powers] was to maintain the unity of the Ottoman state, which had been invaded by the
great powers of Europe;
638
The destructive effects of western imperialism,
639
and
lastly Turkish historians have readily accepted the notion not only that western
economic and political imperialism prevented the Ottoman state from implementing
effective reforms for the empires recovery
640
Thus, although German imperial
historiography does not include a consideration of Germanys imperial activities in the
Ottoman territories, scholars should not conclude that such a position is universally
accepted.
The failure to include German imperialism in the historiography of German
imperialism has led to distortions in the scholarly understanding of German imperial
activity. The principal scholarly interest in German imperial affairs has been devoted to
German activity in Africa, but also in the Pacific Islands as well as in China. However, if
the German imperial activity in the Ottoman Empire is considered, the dynamic of
German imperial historiography changes in important ways. Historical considerations of
German imperialism have often treated nineteenth-century German imperialism as a

638
Ayegl Aydingn and smail Aydingn, The Role of Language in the Formation of
Turkish National Identity and Turkishness, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 10(2004):
419.

639
Mustafa Aksakal, Not by those old books of international law, but only by war:
Ottoman Intellectuals on the Eve of the Great War, Diplomacy and Statecraft 15(2004):
508. Aksakals article discusses historiography and this specific quotation comes from
the most influential and important book (five volumes, in Turkish) on the end of the
Ottoman Empire.

640
Aksakal, 509.

241
predecessor to the Nazi expansion within Europe.
641
Further, even those historians who
have not made an explicit connection between nineteenth-century German imperialism
and the Nazis distort the reality of German imperialism. For example, historian Hartmut
Pogge von Standamm wrote [the] announcing of Germanys interventionist intentions
for the entire globe did not satisfy expansionist ambitions [within Germany] (emphasis
added).
642
Although the logical imprecision of claiming that German interventionist
intentions for the entire globe failed to satisfy German expansionist desires requires no
further comment, the implications for the understanding of German imperialism are
almost as troubling.
643
Even the Fischer thesis contends that the annexationist aims of
the Imperial government not only predated the outbreak of the war but also showed a
remarkable similarity to the plans made by the Nazis
644
Although these are not
Fischers words they represent his argument fairly. The inclusion of the Ottoman Empire
in the historiography of German imperialism, German foreign policy, and the origins of

641
Richard J. Evans, From Hitler to Bismarck: Third Reich and Kaiserreich in Recent
Historiography Part II, Historical Journal 26 (1983): 1000-1001. This is a two part
review article covering more than twenty books on German imperial history. The
connection made between twentieth-century Nazi expansion within Europe and
nineteenth-century German imperialism is not made by Evans, but rather commented on
by Evans in his review of German imperial historiography.

642
Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann and Richard J. Evans (eds.), The Coming of the First
World War (London: Clarendon Press, 1988), 109.

643
This is especially troubling because it is in a text intended to explain the origins of the
First World War and is apparently not intended for specialists in German imperial
history, thus those who read this may not recognize the distortions.

644
Ruth Henig, The Origins of the First World War (London: Routledge, 19XX), 45. The
imprecision of this statement is troubling. Of course all activities in the Imperial period
preceded those of the First World War and the Nazi period, but Fischer does imply a
connection between Imperial expansion and the Nazis.
242
the First World War might temper the seductive but misguided attempt to connect
Imperial Germany (and specifically the government policies) to the Nazis.
Although this dissertation rejects a connection between the foreign policy of the
Imperial German government and the Nazis, it does not absolve the Kaiserreich of its
responsibilities in the nineteenth-century. However, the policies of the Kaisers
government should be interpreted within a comparative context. Fischers principal
contention that Imperial German sought to expand throughout the world is, generally,
correct. However, this expansion has been distorted and viewed as aberrant. This
dissertation contends that in the Ottoman Empire, as well as other places, the German
expansion was well within the established imperialism for the nineteenth-century. Rather
than considering German imperial expansion within the context of the distant Nazis, it
seems appropriate to compare the German expansion to that of the other Powers. Indeed,
between 1888 and 1914, the major Powers asserted an imperial presence in most of the
strategic areas of the world. This is the context in which German expansion in the
Ottoman Empire occurred, and this historical environment should be taken into
consideration when assessing German imperial activity.
Published in 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahans (1840-1914) famous book, The
Influence of Sea Power upon History encouraged the construction of large navies and
global expansion, at least far enough to establish secure global coaling stations. In the
spirit of the new doctrine that developed from this book, the Powers began to assert
themselves around the world and in so doing secured strategic positions. For example,
the United States between 1890 and 1914 established an imperial presence (often without
formal colonies) in: Hawaii (1898), Cuba (1898), the Philippines (1898), Puerto Rico
243
(1898), Guam (1898), Haiti (1903), and Panama (1903). Further, through doctrines such
as the Platt Amendment (1903) and the Roosevelt Corollary (1904) the United States
established (and informed, formally, the other Powers to remain out) American imperial
territory. Similarly, in addition to French interest in North and West Africa, the French
established themselves in Indochina no later than 1893. Although not all of these
territories became colonies (at least before 1914), it is without question that the period
between 1888 and the beginning of the First World War was a period of imperial
expansion (often without colonies) for the Powers. Further, in this period there was an
importance on strategic locations, and it cannot be questioned that the Ottoman Empire
contained many strategically desirable positions. Thus, nineteenth-century German
expansion (or desire for world power) should be understood in the broader pattern of
contemporary Great Power expansion. This German desire to expand has more to do
with the doctrinal and strategic interests of the nineteenth-century than it does the gas
chambers and crematoriums of twentieth-century Poland.
The connection of nineteenth-century German imperialism to the Nazis and to
some degree even the causes of the First World War, represents a problem with the
historiography of German imperialism, but also German foreign policy. The primacy of
the First and Second World Wars in German history has inclined many historians to
consider nearly every significant political, economic, and social event from 1871 (and
sometimes earlier) as a cause of these wars. The consideration of these events is not
inappropriate; however, the focus on these wars has precluded historians of German
imperialism and foreign policy from considering these policies in a broader context.
Consequently, historians of German imperialism and foreign policy have devoted less
244
attention to issues such as German-American relations than they have relations between
Germany and the rest of Europe. The Euro-centric focus of these studies has narrowed
(artificially) the study of German foreign policy and imperialism. Although seductive,
the First and Second World Wars have thus distorted our understanding of German
foreign policy (which should include imperialism). Rather than reconsider German
expansionist desires, it seems that a comparative study of German imperialism would be
of great benefit. Instead of beginning with the assumption that German imperialism was
aberrant, a comparative study of German imperialism might be of real importance.
Thus, this dissertation contends that the Ottoman Empire should be considered
part of Germanys imperial history. The specifics of imperialism in the Ottoman Empire
prohibited the establishment of colonies, but this is not the same as claiming that German
did not have an imperial presence there. Indeed, historians of British, French, and to a
lesser degree Russian imperialism recognize the imperial activities of these powers in the
Ottoman territories. The inclusion of the Ottoman Empire in German imperial
historiography may serve to moderate some of the more dramatic conclusions that have
been made about it. Although significant, the Germans rarely surpassed the influence of
the British or the French, and when the Germans did so they remained solidly within the
established model for imperial expansion in the Ottoman Empire. This German
expansion in the Ottoman Empire was not particularly aggressive or assertive.
Consequently, the inclusion of German imperialism in the Ottoman Empire indicates that
German imperialism was not universally aggressive, a hint of the Nazi ambitions to
develop in the 1930s and 1940s, or even an aberration. Rather, by including the Ottoman
245
Empire in the historiography of German imperialism it is possible to consider that latter
restrained and conventional.





















246

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VITA

Name: Niles Stefan Illich

Address: 2829 Timmons Lane #146, Houston, Texas 77027

Email Address: Nsillich@central.uh.edu; Nsillich@gmail.com

Education: B.A., History, Texas A&M University, 1998
M.A., History, Clemson University, 2001
Ph.D., History, Texas A&M University, 2007